Brent leave disappointed

A dry sunny day with a cold NW wind

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

I checked 08:30 -10:00 on the rising tide this morning and again 17:00 - 18:00 on the ebbing tide this evening (last evening check till springtime!). The following is all from this morning:

Pale-bellied Brent goose 8

They flew from the SE corner of the skear, which is barren of vegetation 
this far out this year. They headed to the north of the skear

They hung around a honeycomb worm reef until it was covered by the tide,
then flew off to the west. There is plenty of gutweed further up the shore here
but some years the SE corner provides a good crop of their favoured sea lettuce
for the early Brent geese arrivals to enjoy 

There were no Eider or Mergansers 

Great Crested Grebe just 1 seen

Cormorants, as well as two or three feeding a group of eight flew SE across the skear, then continued over Heysham Village

Cormorants heading SE

Little Egret 6

Oystercatcher 600, more than of late, but the outer skear was not exposed and the low morning sun made it easy to spot them.

Oystercatchers scattered across the skear

Curlew 20

Redshank 50

Turnstone 15

Knot 800 in several smallish groups.

Knot hunkered down behind a ledge, out of the bitterly cold wind 

Some days the Carrion Crows take exception to you being on their skear.
Other days, like today, they completely ignore you. These were only a couple 
of metres away and I had to "shoo" them to get past!

I returned this evening to check out the Knot, their numbers had grown to 1200. And I managed to find and read several flagged birds before the light faded too much.

Plenty of Knot this evening 

But difficult terrain to spot flagged birds

Not to mention overcrowding 

Occasionally one reveals itself. Details awaited 

Imperial Rd (Malcolm) 10:30

No sign of any Stonechats today

Cetti's warbler singing and Water Rail squealing

Grey Heron 1

Roe Deer, three again but more wary today

Roe Deer