Garden warbler the pick of the day and plenty of wildfowl movement.

Another dry overcast day, the very light NE breeze freshened slightly in the afternoon before easing again.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Report by Alan:

Nets set at Middleton this morning starting pre-dawn.  28 captures in total was perhaps a little disappointing.

Redwing 4

Wren 1

Goldcrest 4 (2 retraps)

Reed Bunting  8

Cetti's Warbler 2 (1 retrap)

Chiffchaff 4

Long tailed Tit (2 retraps)

Blue tit 2 (1 retrap)

Lesser Redpoll 1

 

At around 08.30 many hundreds of Pink footed Geese flew north out of their Fylde roosts. There was a stream of skeins in lovely V formations for a period of 20 minutes or so.

Thrushes were roaming around above the reserve for much of the morning but the only ones caught were very early.

Heysham Nature Reserve

Report by Pete:

34 new birds caught by Jean in 2 hours, 1000-1200. 

Including 1 Garden Warbler, 10 chiffchaff and 15 Goldcrest.

Not one but two Treecreeper - the first ever multiple capture I think! 

At least 185 Redwing dropped in before carrying on SW 

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 10:10 - 11:30

A check as the inner skear was becoming exposed

Pink-Footed goose 146 south in two skeins. This clip by Janet is actually of an earlier skein passing over Meldon Road.

Eider 67

Pintail ducks 4 - they arrived from the north, settled briefly, then continued south

Pintail 

They don't really do much other than pirouette in this clip, but it also shows the waders feeding 

Teal 4 - arrived from the south and settled on the sea to the north of the skear.

Teal 

Wigeon 1 - rested on the skear before flying north

Male Wigeon

Red-Breasted Merganser 2

Great Crested Grebe 5

Little Egret 5

Oystercatcher 400

This partially leucistic Oystercatcher, or one very like it, was here last winter too.

Curlew 40

Redshank 250

Knot 150 - I eventually located an orange flagged bird, unfortunately its code was completely obscured by dirt/algae

Turnstone 60

Middleton Nature Reserve (Malcolm)

I just popped into the bottom car park to see if the female Pochard was still there. She was, this clip shows her feeding with Tufted Duck