The early south breeze gradually swung round to NW by evening. A dry day with plenty of warm sunshine in the afternoon.
First some overnight news.
23:30 last night - Whimbrel "flock" flew over Angela Gillon's house in the NE of the recording area.
Middleton Nature Reserve
Ringing report by John:
Warm again with a light wind. Arrived at 6am and three nets set.
Numbers caught were small, but all were new birds apart from one Chiffchaff.
They comprised ;
Lesser Redpoll 5
Sedge Warbler 4
Tree Pipit 1
Great Tit 1
Chiffchaff 1
Lesser Whitethroat 1
North Harbour wall - Mark Prestwood 6.30 - 8.30 am
3 dark morph Arctic Skua
26 Gannet
Flock of 7 red-breasted Merganser in
25 common scoter
Short seawatch prior to the high water webs survey - Pete (Marks birds additional)
10 gannet
7 kittiwake
1 guillemot
3 common scoter
15 sandwich tern, plus 5 on green buoy on the south side.
Whinchat 1 male briefly on Ocean Edge foreshore
Porpoise 2
Seen from Stone Jetty, by Josh Hedley, there will be some overlap with Pete's and Mark's records
07:21- 09:30
Red-throated Diver- 1
Gannet- 7
Common Scoter- c.25
Pink-foot- 362
Mute Swan- 3
Eider- 78
Whimbrel- 7
Turnstone- 80
Sandwich Tern- 14
Sand Martin- 5
Swallow- 20
Pete and Jeans webs included:
900 Knot on Heliport
193 Turnstone on heliport at high tide plus 22 on wooden jetty.
I just checked Red Nab to saltmarsh towards high water (Malcolm)
No sign of the Brent geese today
Shelduck 2
Whimbrel 7
Rock,Pipit 1 on Red Nab
Wheatear 8
Wheatear |
Swallow 2 in
Lesser Whitethroat still singing from scrub behind Red Nab
Kevin and Alison checked along the sea wall in the warm afternoon sun.
Common Whitethroat 1 in the scrub near the lighthouse
Lots of invertebrates along the wall again, despite the less than ideal wind.
Heysham skear - low water 16:50 (Malcolm)
Just a very quick check early in the ebbing tide (3 hours before low water)
Eider c70
Red-breasted Merganser 7
Knot c1,000
Curlew 5
Curlew |
Whimbrel 3
Whimbrel and male Red-breasted Merganser |
Whimbrel |
Bar-Tailed Godwit 284 feeding along the water line to the south of the skear.
Mainly Godwits along the south waterline |
Dunlin 80 (no Sanderling with them today)
Turnstone 30