Sunday 22 May 2022

Again the evening provides most interest

SSW wind. Overcast all day with several showers, fortunately the sun came out late evening.

Heysham skear 
Thought I would try a different tactic today. It told me something, but I have no idea what! (MD).
I went down 90 minutes after low water and watched the tide in as far as I left it yesterday evening, when the Sanderling were feeding. Today I didn't see a single small wader. Apart from Oystercatcher there were just 3 Curlew.
Great Crested Grebe 4
Eider 61 
Little Egret 3.
I watched this Little Egret for a few minutes and never saw it catch anything.

But there were things to catch, this other bird flew in to within a few metres of the above and immediately caught a Common Goby and a small flatfish (looks like a young Dover Sole - quite a distinctive elongated shape)

I returned on the ebbing tide 20:45. The sun was shining, but the wind was fresh and cold! We are moving to neap tides now which means they do not go out as quickly. I ended up leaving before the tide was out as far as I have been seeing small waders recently. Even so:
Sanderling 5 - this clip is quite distant but provides a short in flight view.

Knot 42 - this is them coming in, they landed just 10m from me. Note how the bird that ends up third from the left deliberately dips its belly into the water. Presumably cooling down, I wonder how far they have flown.

A few of them were quite red
They made little attempt to feed, they just wanted a rest. They were still where they landed when I left 15 minutes later.

This is the RNLI hovercraft this afternoon. It was interesting how the different birds reacted. The gulls, Oystercatchers and Grebes were largely indifferent. But all the Eider took flight and the Cormorant was undecided, but eventually took flight