A light SW to west breeze. Overcast in the morning sunny periods in the afternoon. Sea mist around high water.
Heysham skear - low water 09:00 (MD)
Eider 49
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| Mane and female Eider |
Great Crested Grebe 12 - they have very complex displays, this is just a small part of one
Red-breasted Merganser 2 femalsLittle Egret 5
Sandwich Tern 2 feeding
Again very few waders, although many of the Oystercatcher would have been on the outer skear.
Oystercatcher c200
Curlew 1
Whimbrel 3
Dunlin 1
As I was crossing the upper beach, it was obvious that there had been a lot of sediment dropped by the previous tide. The mud was at least 1cm thicker than yesterday and the top layer was slippy as it was not compacted. Yesterday's rain coupled with a fast ebbing spring tide must have cut a channel through one of the sandbars. Once they are breeched like this the ebbing tide quickly scours tonnes of mud from the bars.
I thought no more about it until I was approaching the skear and realised that there were nowhere near as many gulls feeding on the seed mussels, and those that were feeding were on different areas to yesterday.
This is why......
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| The seed mussels were covered in mud, even the ones still showing would be difficult to dislodge |
This isn't an immediate concern for the mussels, they will release their bond to the rocky bottom and move above the mud. But this then means that they are no longer anchored to the substate, just to each other, which makes them more vulnerable to being swept away when we have storms.
The only location today allowing the gulls easy pickings where along the edges of the honeycomb worm beds.
Up till now the seed mussels had been doing well growing on top of the honeycomb worm beds, but I don't know what will happen now that these have a coating of mud.....
.......but you have to imaging that additional mud must favour the worms who actively use the mud to build their tubes and grow the beds.
I don't know if this was a coincidence, but you don't commonly see sea slugs on the skear. This one had managed to get itself stranded.
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| Common grey sea slug |
I placed it in a pool, unfortunately upside down at first.
I turned it over, it would have managed itself in time, but they are not the fastest movers. Here it is shooting off
This was another stranded creature, a barrel Jellyfish. I've always known them as Medusa Jellyfish and you can see why.
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| Barrel Jellyfish |
I moved it to a nearby pool, they are safe to handle by their dome.
Another slow mover, but at least it was moving
South shore
Janet had a walk down the sea wall but the sea mist prevented her from seeing far, but she managed these shots at Red Nab
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| Little Egret through the mist |
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| Ringed Plover |
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| Dunlin and Ringed Plover |
The House Sparrows in the Duke of Rothesay garden are feeding fledged young
Pete's check of the sea was also thwarted by the mist
Sea: two porpoise, one swallow and one sandwich tern then mist came in!
