Another grey day of diminishing returns

Another overcast but dry day. A light south wind.

Heysham skear - low water 08:20 (Malcolm)

Pink-Footed goose, several skeins heard above the low cloud. This small skein dropped below the cloud line to get their bearings.

Pink-Footed geese

Pale-bellied Brent goose 18 were foraging around the SE skear corner at low water, they started moving high up the shore later

Some of the Brent geese and Oystercatcher in the skear corner

Eider 17 - 12 flew to the north while 5 remained feeding in the distance 

Wigeon 2

Oystercatcher 1,500

Curlew 40

Redshank 150

Turnstone 10

Knot 180 - two small flocks of 60 and 80 were flying around. Then they merged, gained height and flew off to the north. Only a flock of 40 remained to feed, none of them coded.

Knot and Oystercatcher 

In contrast these are some of the Knot from Thursday, when the sun shone and the Knot were plentiful.

To be fair, even in such good conditions you seldom get to see Knot as close as this. The incoming tide was pushing them up the shore while they probed the mud for small molluscs. Meanwhile I was waiting with the low morning sun behind me. The two orange flagged Knot above take centre stage in this clip.

I haven't much time again tomorrow and conditions look to be similar to today. But one of the beauties of Nature is that you never know for sure what lays ahead.