A hint of things to come?

A hot sunny day, no air movement at all early on, then a light west breeze

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Report from Jean:

What a difference the weather makes! On Wednesday when it was overcast and a bit damp I caught 19 birds in one hour, today in the glorious sunshine I only caught 11 in 3 hours. The net was too visible. 

On both days 80% of the birds were this year’s young. The species lists were similar:
Goldfinch (5 - 2)
Greenfinch (3 - 3)
Blue Tit (3 -1)
Great Tit (6 - 1)
Dunnock (1 - 2)
Wren (0 - 1)
The only other difference was the one warbler caught: on Wednesday it was a Chiffchaff and today it was a Blackcap.
All these birds will be locally bred.
Apart from a few gulls overhead, the only other bird of note was a young Peregrine on one of the pylons calling for food. 
Common Blue butterflies were amongst the Bird’s-foot trefoil behind the office building, two Gatekeepers and a Small White flew along the mist net ride.

South shore

I checked 08:15 - 09:45 (Malcolm)

Insect migration here is best when it is warm, the tide out and an east breeze. This morning we had two of the three, there was no breeze at all. But there were already Small White coming in/off at 08:15, a total of 12 seen plus 1 Red Admiral. It looked promising for later, but when Kevin checked the west breeze had started and there was no sign of insect movement. The forecast for the weekend is more sun and an east breeze, so hopefully there will be plenty of insects coning in.

Mediterranean gull 2 - an adult and a 3rd calendar year between the outfalls

Juvenile Lesser Black-Backed gulls are plentiful now.
Not seen a fledged Herring gull yet

Common Sandpiper 2 together near the wooden jetty 

Common Sandpiper 

It lost visual contact with its companion, you can just hear its contact calls and a reassuring reply.

Rock Pipit 1 along the sea wall

Wheatear 2 juveniles together near the slipway

Two juvenile Wheatears

Look how flat the sea is

The beauty of a flat sea, is that you can see every ripple that shouldn't be there, providing a brief glimpse of a passing Grey Seal

Middleton Nature Reserve (Malcolm) 14:30 - 16:00

Swallow at least 16

Swift at least 17 (probably 24)

They were feeding over the main pond before moving off to the SE. My camera skills aren't up to Janet's so I just pointed my camera in the right direction and took a clip to give a sense of the activity.

Wildfowl as of late.

Little Grebe 1 trilling

Warblers heard

Cetti's 2

Chiffchaff 2

Common Whitethroat 1

Blackcap 1

Red-Veined Darter 1 male - my first visit to the area on the west bank of the main pond, where the swans rest saw nothing, when I checked again on my way back it was patrolling out over the water.

Red-Veined Darter

He did settle briefly - hopefully he will get some company over the weekend 

Black-Tailed Skimmer 3 males

Male Black-Tailed Skimmer

Emperor 2 males

Brown Hawker 3

Common Darter 2

Butterflies, those without numbers were plentiful 

Speckled Wood

Meadow Brown

Large White 2

Small White 2 at least

Green-Veined White 4 at east

Red Admiral 2

Comma 1

Small Tortoiseshell 1

Gatekeeper

Common Blue

By 20:00 there was a lot of anting (catching flying ants) going on. Mainly Black-Headed gulls. This is looking from my back door (Malcolm)

They were also anting over Kevin's, but his included 4 Mediterranean gulls