South shore (Malcolm)
A check around high water, mainly to see if there were any waders on what remained exposed of Red Nab. There were:
Oystercatcher 1!
There were 8 Curlew resting on the saltmarsh before flying off south.
Eider 1 female south
Little Egret 2
Linnet 6 - 3 each saltmarsh and near lighthouse
Rock Pipit just one seen today, gathering food between the lighthouse and waterfall
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| Plenty of Oystercatcher on the north side heliport wall |
Heysham skear - low water 16:20 (Malcolm)
Little Egret 7
Eider 81
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| Eider |
Oystercatcher 300
The only other waders were 6 Curlew. These are three of them.
And that was it apart from the gulls
Lesser Black-Backed gull 30 feeding mainly on the northern side of the skear
Herring gull 100 scattered all over the skear.
This time last year there were seed mussels all over the skear and hundreds of Herring gulls feeding on them. I hadn't seen any seed mussels at all this year, until I reached the western limit of the middle skear. And here, it was covered in them, and quite well developed considering that I didn't see any when I last checked here a couple of weeks ago.
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| Seed mussels |
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| You can see the Herring gulls scattered around, many not bothering with the seed mussels |
A few were pecking at them, but not with any enthusiasm.
It will be interesting to see how this develops, the seed mussels have been a major source of food for the, mainly immature, Herring gulls for the last few years.
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| The Sea Cat was coming in. It is still a long way off the harbour and at full speed. The speed lifts it high above the waves. |
