Raptors clear the skear!

A dry day with afternoon sunshine. A SW wind

Saltmarsh to Red Nab (Janet)

Carrion crowing!

Lesser Black-backed gull, it had clearly been digging in the grass

Meadow Pipit

Little Egret

Shelduck

Some of the 25+ Pale-bellied Brent geese leaving Red Nab

Heysham skear - low water 15:50 (Malcolm)

I went down just after lunch as the skear was becoming exposed. I was hoping to be spending a couple of hours checking any Knot for flags. Unfortunately within 30 minutes the skear was almost devoid of waders!

Knot 1,500 were resting amongst the inner skear rocks when everything went up for as far as I could see. Not just waders but gulls and geese too. This is the sort of reception normally reserved for the likes of an Osprey, but I couldn't see what spooked them. About 800 Knot returned but then the Peregrine attacks began. Three in 10 minutes resulting in just 400 Knot remaining. I was lucky enough to be able to check these for flags, but unlucky enough not to find any! A fourth Peregrine attack saw those leave too. No Knot remained on the skear.

Oystercatcher 1,000 to begin with but the Peregrine continued to attack them, and most left the skear.

Redshank 400 did remain feeding around the skear edges.

Turnstone 250 these too remained around the edges.

The Turnstone had forgone their stone turning for a bit of shrimping,
or at least foraging for invertebrates in the receding shallows

This clip is the Turnstone  feeding, and ends with the birds taking flight as a Peregrine attacked the Oystercatchers.

Peregrine Falcon - just right of centre

Curlew 8

Bar-Tailed Godwit 15 until they too left with a group of spooked Oystercatchers.

Some of the godwits moulting to summer plumage

Bar-Tailed Godwit and Oystercatchers 

And that was it! The normally vibrant Skear was deserted. Nothing along the north
edge or in the middle. Just some valiant Turnstone and Redshank remained on the 
Southern edge. I don't know how many Peregrines were involved, possibly no more 
than two, but suspect that at least one was testing itself against the Oystercatchers.

Eider 14

Red-breasted Merganser 6

Pale-bellied Brent goose 62 arrived from the west 

Incoming Brent geese

They too got caught up in the Peregrine induced panic

But they returned to feed and remained around the north side of the skear

I returned this evening on the flood tide. By this time there were just 3 Pale-bellied Brent geese, a pair plus this individual.

Pale-bellied Brent goose

But there was also a Dark-bellied Brent goose

Dark-bellied Brent goose

It flew off to the north

As I was leaving this evening another 55 Pale-bellied brent flew in from the north.

Also this evening 

Shelduck 2 south

Little Egret 6 feeding

It was a beautiful evening, but the approaching weather front doesn't bode
well for tomorrow