Reflections

Another warm sunny day with a light variable breeze, although clouds were building by late evening.

Joanne Byrne spotted this Roe Deer yesterday. It was on the embankment to the railway line, to the east of the railway bridge at the start of Moneyclose Lane.

It was only small so likely one of this year's young

This shows the location, there were people talking in the gardens.....

.....but the deer was happy to continue feeding.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Janet reported one of the two Cygnets was dead on the main pond spit yesterday. The remaining one was looking well, but perhaps lonely, today. The following shots from Rosemary Silvester.

The solitary remaining cygnet

Common Blue Damselfly

Male Emperor

I had a look mid morning (Malcolm)

Two of the summer plumaged adult Little Grebe were together on the "no swimming" pond.

One of at least two independent young grebes

No sign of the Gadwall today.

Butterflies:

Ringlet a few faded ones

Meadow Brown several

Gatekeeper several

Green-veined White 3

Common Blue 3

No sign of the Copper-tip Longhorn moths again

Dragonflies:

Emperor 6

Female Emperor in flight, with its reflection below

Female Emperor ovipositoring, again nicely reflected

Black-Tailed Skimmer 1 male

Broad-bodied Chaser 2 males

Male Broad-bodied Chaser

Common Darter lots! This pair are ovipositoring.

Buzzard 1 drifted high to the south

Common Buzzard

Not so many Oystercatcher on the Heliport wall today, but these low neap
tides barely reach it

Ocean Edge beach (Malcolm)

The gulls were resting on the dry mud again this evening 

Including 27 Mediterranean gulls. Three were colour ringed, but all seen previously this summer.

This German ringed bird (AZ-ZZ) has not been recorded since it arrived 19/07
Clearly they commute between feeding/roosting areas

Swallows 5 feeding above the rotting strand line.

Access restrictions

Another warm sunny day with a freshening west wind

Middleton Nature Reserve 

These shots from Rosemary and Peter Silvester from Sunday and yesterday 

Male Common Darter

Female Brown Hawker

Common Bluetail 

Male Black-Tailed Skimmer

Common Blu Damselflies 

Male Emperor

These from Janet today

Female Common Darter

Female Emperor 

Common Blue

South shore (Malcolm)

Announcement - As I was leaving the sea wall this morning an EDF team were erecting a fence across the beginning of the sea wall. When Kevin arrived in the afternoon, he was informed that access to the sea wall will be closed during weekdays till 17:00. This is to allow repairs to the wall which are expected to continue until the end of November.

Mediterranean gull - there were at least 11 on and around the beach by the wooden jetty this morning. There were a number of gulls feeding just out from the harbour mouth. It isn't clear what they were finding to eat, something small, but apparently plentiful.

The German yellow ringed Med turned up to feed on the beach, but they are still only finding Sandmason worms in the shallow water.

An evening check out from the saltmarsh initially didn't look promising, the gulls were disturbed first by a dog walker then two parties of holidaymakers heading for the sea. Fortunately a reasonable sized group of gulls remained including at least 23 Meds. These included a white ringed and two green ringed birds, all of which have been seen earlier this summer. One of the green ringed birds was almost impossible to read as its characters were filled with sand. I had to get really close to sort it out.

R9UJ. Ringed in France 25/06/22, making it a 3rd calendar year

That was as close as I got! I didn't actually spook the Meds and Black-Headed,
it was a group of Common gulls further away that took flight and lifted the others.
You can see a tiny fleck of black remaining in one of the Med's primaries 

There were quite a lot of Common gulls this evening 14 in this shot

Also this morning

Sandwich Tern at least one heard out from the wooden jetty somewhere 

Rock Pipit 1 on Red Nab

Rock Pipit

In the Nature Park

Large White 3

Female Large White

Red Admiral 1

Brimstone 1

Small Skipper 2

Gatekeeper 5

Meadow Brown 3

Comma 2

It always amazes me that this striking butterfly is named after the tiny
comma mark on its underwing 

Comma

Hirundinidae passing through

A warm sunny day with a light NW wind

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Yesterday's ringing report by Alan

Just two nets set at Middleton this morning resulted in 20 birds captured.

Wren  1

Robin  3

Blackbird  1

Cetti's Warbler  2 + 1 retrap

Grasshopper Warbler  1

Sedge Warbler  2

Blackcap  1

Chiffchaff  3

Willow Warbler  1 + 1 retrap

Blue Tit  1

Great Tit  2

 

Two/three pairs of Swift plus a small number of Swallows feeding high over the reserve and one Swallow flew south fast and low past my ringing station, presumably an early passage bird.

 

A moth trap set the previous night that was clear and cool caught only a modest 17 moths of 11 species.

Janet checked today

Juvenile Sand Martin

Sand and house Martin 

Swallow shaking itself dry after a bath

Sedge Warbler

Gatekeeper

Meadow Brown

Emperor 

Black-Tailed Skimmer

No sign of the Copper-tip Longhorn moths today

South shore

This aptly named White Satin Moth
was resting on the sea wall this afternoon - Kevin.

I checked the shore out from the saltmarsh this evening (Malcolm).

Many small gulls were anting again but a large group was resting on the mud.

Gulls resting on the mud out from the saltmarsh 

Mediterranean gull 31 including 2 juvenile and 15 x 2nd calendar year. Most were sat on the mud for most of the time, but eventually I managed to see a good proportion of their legs, revealing only one to be colour ringed, and that was the Belgium ringed bird seen on Friday.

Mediterranean, two Black-Headed and a Common gull

Swallow 3

There was a good variety of butterflies in the Nature Park

Meadow Brown several

Gatekeeper several 

Ringlet 2

Large White 2

Small White 3

Speckled wood 3

Red Admiral 1

Small Skipper 1

Comma 1

Brimstone 1

Brimstone 

Brimstone and a Buff-tailed Bumblebee 

Brown Hawker 1

Some nice aerial shots

A warm sunny day with a light westish breeze.

Heysham skear - low water 11:50 (Malcolm)

Little Egret 7

Little Egret feeding below the Honeycomb worm reefs on the north side of the skear

Little Egret feeding amongst the lower Honeycomb worm beds on the south side

Eider 2 both resting on an exposed reef.

Eider and a young gull

Red-breasted Merganser 1 female type

Great Crested Grebe 3

Great Crested Grebe

This cormorant has caught a flounder that is too wide to pass through its gape, it eventually discarded it. 

Oystercatcher c400

Redshank 60

Turnstone 3

Curlew 40

Curlew and Redshank 

Swift 1 south

Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)

Grey Heron

Reed warbler 

Swift

House Martin

Swallow and House Martin 

Immature Swallow still with a gape

Black-tailed Skimmers

Common Darter

Common Blue

Small White

There were several lots of gulls anting over the recording area this evening. These ants were emerging from Janet's garden.