Feeding time.......

A heavy downpour at 07:00 after that dry and largely sunny. A fresh NW to NNW wind.

South Shore (MD)

I couldn't get down till 09:30, probably missed most of anything that had been grounded by the rain. Still, along the foreshore:

Robin 2

Robins rarely make the picture gallery 

Goldfinch 2

Linnet 4

Pied Wagtail 1

Rock Pipit 2 plus 1 on Red Nab

Wheatear 4

Wheatear 

Mediterranean gulls 6 - 4 adult on Red Nab in the morning plus, later in the afternoon, 2 x 1st calendar year on the end of No.1 outflow. This is one of the Meds at the end of No.1 outflow, a Grey Seal reveals itself at the end of the clip.

1st calendar year Mediterranean gull and a Grey Seal

I walked along the wall in the afternoon to check the beach next to the wooden jetty, only 2 adult Meds turned up. The new ferry obviously has a greater displacement and more power than the old one, and has a proportionally larger wake. This is the wake running up the beach next to the wooden jetty.

It clearly reached further up the beach than the Oystercatchers were expecting. I am confident that this additional replenishment of nutrients up the beach can only benefit the Sandmason worm colony. We'll see.

This Redshank found a crab in the wash. It was just about small enough to pass its gape, when all its limbs were removed. Even so it made short work of it.

In contrast this young Black-Headed Gull didn't seem to know what to do with this small fish. What's it been eating up to now? Perhaps it was already full. It took it almost two minutes to eat this Whitebait, it spent most of that time washing it.

I mentioned yesterday about honing survival skills, hopefully it will soon learn that it will seldom be allowed to play with its food for so long. It probably only got away with it today as there was plenty of food to go round. In this clip it finally managed to eat the fish, meanwhile an Oystercatcher casually catches a Sandmason worm.

The Starling numbers in the harbour continue to grow. There are 500+ now, these are some of them on one of the platforms, I'm pretty sure they are not feeding here, just breaking off pieces of barnacle shell for grit.

Juvenile Turnstone 

Some nice shots from Janet:

Redshank and Oystercatcher on the Heliport wall
plus the Manxman turning into the harbour

The top of the heliport wall looking out into the bay

Female Migrant Hawker on Middleton Nature Reserve 

It's caught a Crane Fly