Early morning mist didn't help!

Breathless overnight and a SW breeze in the morning meant that the sea and inshore for a way was covered in mist. It remained overcast till mid afternoon when the sun broke through, then a warm sunny afternoon.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing report from Alan

The weather for ringing this morning was again not ideal with very low misty cloud and an unexpected brisk SW breeze. The misty cloud base was variable and almost down to ground level at times.

Ringing captures:

Sedge Warbler 6 + 1 retrap

Blackcap 1

Lesser Whitethroat 4

Common Whitethroat 1

Cetti's Warbler 2 

Willow Warbler 2

Garden Warbler 1

Song Thrush 1

Wren 1

Unsurprisingly little was seen overhead except for one Swallow flying towards the SW.

A Grey Heron took a Moorhen chick from the newly cleared area in the western reed bed accompanied by much squawking form the adult. It returned later hoping for another but without success.

Heysham skear - low water 07:40 (MD)

Another check on the rising tide, 90 minutes after low water.

Initially there was little chance of seeing anything through the mist, but it did start to lift as the tide came in.

Eider 31 - a few have taken to browsing the seed mussels from the shallow pools. This clip was actually from Saturday, but there were a couple feeding like this today.

Red-breasted Merganser 6

These mergansers flew off as the mist lifted

Great Crested Grebe 6

Little Egret 6

Sandwich Tern - some - there was almost always one calling and one seen on a few occasions, almost certainly more than one, but possibly as few as two.

Not many waders apart from the Oystercatchers:

Curlew 1

Whimbrel 23

Bar-Tailed Godwit 1

Dunlin 2

Ocean Edge to Red Nab (MD)

Just a quick late morning check

Wheatear 1

Shealduck 11

Litter Egret 4

Little Egret