Friday, 29 November 2024

More Brent

Early morning rain, then a dry day till rain began again in the evening. A fresh and biting SE wind.

Heysham skear - low water 16:40 (Malcolm)
Low water is getting quite late now and the inner skear was just becoming exposed as I headed out at 14:00.
Pale-bellied Brent 28 - there were already 11 feeding above the waterline, then 17 more came in.



The new arrivals in the SE skear corner
No sign of the Common Scoters today
Red-breasted Merganser 3
Eider 13
Eider

Just a clip to show the frantic feeding activity as the receding tide exposes more of the skear.

I managed to read a few colour coded Knot from the 1,000 or so around, then a pair of Peregrines started attacking and they were relentless, most of the Knot moved on.
This is one of yesterday's Knot, we now have its history 
Ringed as an adult at Reykjafjördur NW Iceland 25/05/22
This is the scheme manager's summary:
Looking at the history of 06X it probably moults on the Sefton coast and moves to Morecambe Bay for the winter. One sighting suggests it might move back to the Sefton coast in spring before migrating north to Iceland.

Dunlin 17 in one flock plus several individuals with the Knot
Dunlin, Redshank and Oystercatchers

Other waders as recent
Oystercatcher with a partially leucitic head