An increase, in Brent geese

A dry day with some sunshine. A light SW breeze.

Heysham skear (Malcolm)

Two checks again as the skear was covered then uncovered, although this evening's check was relatively brief in the fading light.

Pale-Bellied Brent geese 25 flew from the rocks midway up the shore to the rocks out from the play area this morning 

Some of the Brent geese heading to the play area rocks.
You can see the gutweed on the rocks at the bottom of the shot,
that is where they were feeding.

Pink-Footed goose 45 south this morning

Wigeon 23 south this afternoon 

Wigeon heading south over the exposing skear

Eider 10

Red-breasted Merganser 1 male

Shag at least 1 juvenile, both sessions. This is this afternoon, the Merganser also drifts through

Little Egret 2

Oystercatcher, Curlew, Redshank and Turnstone similar to recent

Bar-Tailed Godwit 5 this morning

Bar-Tailed Godwits

Common Snipe 4 - this morning's birds had rested on the skear before heading east

Knot at least 5000 this morning, but heavily disturbed by at least one Peregrine Falcon. 4000 had returned this evening before I was finally beaten by the light.

Some of the Knot still not fully moulted from summer plumage

There were several flagged birds seen but some flocks had almost no flagged birds amongst them, plus of course the terrain isn't ideal for seeing all their legs. But it would seem that the effects of the damage to the mussel beds caused by storm Amy in early October has benefited the Knot. They seem to be easily finding lots of small mussels that are an ideal size for them.

A UK scheme flagged bird, right. The middle Knot has a small mussel
which they swallow whole.

This was 16:05. I managed to continue till 16:30.

Janet took this clip of the Widgeon on the saltmarsh on the south side.