A warm sunny day with a light west wind.
South shore (Malcolm)
A morning check as the rising tide approached Red Nab
Sandwich Tern at least 3 adults
 |
Sandwich Tern with quite a large Whitebait.
Not scavenged from the outflows but caught in open water. |
 |
| Two Sandwich Terns resting on the mud with the gulls |
Things looked promising, there were loads of small gulls around including at least 17 Mediterranean gulls, but just as they were settling on Red Nab a loud steam blow off from the Power Station spooked them and they resettled on mud out from the foreshore, but unfortunately spooked again by a dog enjoying its holidays. I only managed to spot one green ringed 3rd calendar year and that was the French ringed bird seen earlier this month.
 |
| French ringed 3cy Med |
 |
Take a close look at this one. The gull behind has just ejected a pellet.
There is a line of spittle defining its trajectory |
 |
This is where the gulls ended up this morning, unfortunately
I didn't have time to check them out....... |
.........so I returned early evening.
 |
| There were three groups of gulls resting on the mud, this was the largest |
There were at least 30 Mediterranean gulls in the three groups. Unfortunately the tide hasn't reached this far for a week and the mud was dry, so most of the gulls were sitting for most of the time, but eventually I managed to read 5 new birds for this year, although they were all seen here last year too. Hopefully at least some will have been seen elsewhere since.
 |
| This is a German ringed bird |
Middleton Nature Reserve (Janet)
 |
| Female/immature Reed Bunting |
 |
| Male Reed Bunting |
 |
| Swallow |
 |
| Pair of Black-Tailed Skimmers |
 |
| Pair of Common Blue Damselflies |
 |
| Excellent sequence of a male Emperor |
 |
| Female Emperor ovipositoring |
 |
It isn't clear what has attracted the male Common Blue damselflies
Janet though they may have been after her eggs. Perhaps so. |
