Good stuff at the fringes

After a morning shower, the rain managed to hold off till mid afternoon. A freshening SE wind.

These shots are from the Main pond on Middleton Nature Reserve yesterday. Janet can't use her large lens until her arm is fully recovered from surgery, but the wildfowl here can be obliging

Mallard and Tufted Ducks

Male Tufted Duck showing his wing plumage 

Most of the wildfowl was gregarious, but this Moorhen was keeping its distance 

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 09:45 - 11:15

I went down quite late in the rising tide. No Brent Geese, Eider or Mergansers seen.

Little Egret 5

Shag at least 2 juveniles 

Two Shag

Cormorant 

I had wondered if the Knot might turn up late. When I started there were just a few hundred scattered around the skear in small groups. Most hunkered down against the surprisingly cold SE wind.

Knot, looking nearly as cold as I felt!

But as the rising tide consolidated them they were joined by others arriving from the north. Eventually c2,000 were on what was left of the skear. Still not easy to check for flags, but I did see some, although most had already been seen this winter.

Orange flag with white characters 76U. This is a typical sighting.
Ringed at Merseyside last May.

Grey Plover on the skear is slightly unusual, although there was one for a 
while last winter

The water vapour in the ship's exhaust is condensing, making it look like
one of the steam ships that used to leave the harbour......apparently.

Imperial Rd (Malcolm)

Just a brief stop off on my way home failed to relocate the Stonechats.

Cetti's warbler 1 seen

Kestrel 2 

Grey Heron 1

Heron

Mediterranean gull 1 - it was with other gulls in the field to the east of the road. This puts it just outside the recording area, but clearly easily seen from it

Mediterranean gull, left centre, coming in to land

Mediterranean gull with Common gulls

There didn't seem to be a particular reason for them to be there, no sign of any slurry spreading. I checked again in passing this afternoon and the field was empty.

The was a report of a Black Redstart near the Sunnyslopes groyne. Pete went to check it out and managed to see it, near the houses just south of the slipway at Rydal Rd. The northern boundary for the recording area land birds is Knowsley Rd, and you would be hard pushed to see it from there, so just outside the recording area. Hopefully it will hang around.