Another 26 Little gulls

The light NE to east wind continues, sunshine in the morning but overcast after lunch.

Pete and Jean managed another thorough check of the south side, Pete scoping from Ocean Edge and Jean scoping from the lighthouse allowing maximum sea coverage.

Little Gull 26 in one flock drifted in with the tide c09:50 before "disappearing" presumably flew high before heading inland.

Arctic Tern 25 - in off then high to the east over Red Nab

Sandwich Tern 8 minimum blogging, mainly on north side

Shag 1 probably 2cy briefly on wooden jetty

Common Sandpiper 1 (first record this year)

Lesser Redpoll 10

Linnet 13

Common Scoter 1

House Martin 1

Sand Martin 5

Swallow 79 - the main flight line was in off then NE just south of Red Nab

Jean didn't have here camera yesterday when some of the Little gulls flew over. She was prepared today, but typically the Little gulls were much too distant to photograph. Still she took this shot of the, mainly 2cy Common gulls, at the seaward end of No.1 outflow.

Mainly 2cy Common gulls feeding at the end of No.1 outflow

There were c300 Common gulls between new yellow outfall post south of the outfalls and Heysham skear with about 130 Black-Headed gulls

Heysham skear - low water 07:30

Pete had a look from Knowlys Rd:

Great Crested Grebe 12

Red-breasted Merganser 7

Herring Gulls 820, the main group on the seed mussels in the middle of the skear, rest spread around.

Sandwich Tern 3

I had a walk down (MD)

Some of the Herring Gulls feeding on the seed mussels. 
The Lesser Black-Backed gulls don't take advantage of this easy snack.....yet.
Perhaps they will start this year.

Eider 55

This is one of the Sandwich Tern fishing, unsuccessfully on this occasion. When it dives, you can see a second bird also diving behind it.

This one has caught a small fish, a young Black-Headed Gull naively tries to catch it, but the tern is in a different league when it comes to manoeuvrability!

Four small ducks near the green marker post looked promising, but they turned out to be Teal. This clip also includes two Great Crested Grebe and two Red-breasted Merganser.

They flew off north, led by the ladies

Oystercatcher c1,000

Redshank c50

Turnstone c150

Curlew 4

Whimbrel 3

Bar-Tailed Godwit 1

Bar-Tailed Godwit and Oystercatchers

Swallow 17

Sand Martin 4