First Willow Warbler and a Goosander

A lightish SW wind. The rain stopped just after 07:00. After that just a few light showers and plenty of sunny spells.

South Shore 08:30 - 1:00 (MD)

Shelduck 2

Wigeon 2 - first arrivals are easy, but last sighting of spring are only really practical in hindsight, but these could be they.

Meadow Pipit 15 

Skylark 1

alba Wagtail 2

The above all over to the north and none seen past Red Nab

Wheatear 2 on foreshore 

Linnet 5 on foreshore plus 3 near the lighthouse. One of the foreshore birds had a large black seed again. I suspect these washed in on the last set of spring tides. No idea what they are.

Greenfinch 6 at Red Nab, at least 2 of them ringed. They also were foraging the flotsam.

This female seems to have a seed, or nut too big to crack!

Kittiwake 3 x 2nd calendar year on their pipe in the harbour.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Kevin Singleton had a look around early afternoon 

Willow Warbler 1 singing - first record this year

Goosander 1 female on the "no swimming" pond. They are very uncommon in the recording area, particularly inland like this.

I went for a look later in the afternoon (MD) she was still there.

Female Goosander

She was constantly dipping her head below the water and, as you can see in this clip, appearing to wash her mouth out. I've seen diving birds behave like this before on this newt rich pond, and wondered if they had eaten, or attempted to eat, a newt that had left a nasty taste. My camera was being particularly noisy this afternoon (I really shouldn't have dropped it!) so we are silent mode.

I've left the volume on for this short clip. If you can manage to ignore the camera clicks, there is a nice burst of song from a Cetti's Warbler 

Water Rail 1 calling

Sand Martin 5 - I can't blame my camera for this, I'm just not a good enough cameraman to catch a decent inflight shot. This disjointed clip gives a nice flavour of their movement though.

Heysham "skear"- low water13:40 (MD)

Skear is in inverted commas as these very low neap tides barely expose the inner skear.

Eider 34

Little Egret 3

Bar-Tailed Godwit 22 feeding along the shoreline (the Godwit are after lugworms, the Oystercatcher seeking cockles)

Knot 21 - these are some of them resting on the skear edge with Bar-Tailed Godwit and Oystercatcher. One of the Godwits is just starting to acquire summer plumage.

When you see a flock of a thousand Knot they are almost instantly identifiable. But this small group against the light was not immediately obvious. You can't really see much of the birds in this clip, but it does provide a view from the skear and ends with the Sea Cat leaving the harbour.

Other waders: Dunlin 1, Curlew 20+, Turnstone 30+, Redshank 100+, Oystercatcher c2,000.