At least one Shag around

A dry day with some sunshine. An east wind.

First some shots by Janet from yesterday on Middleton Nature Reserve 

Gadwall and a Tufted Duck

Drake Tufted Duck

The Coot were still battling 

But a snack in between

Blue Tit

Long-Tailed Tit

Heysham skear - low water 08:50 (Malcolm)

I went down early hoping to see some Knot before they were moved on, as they have been this last few days, by a Peregrine. There were 1,000 on the strips of the outer skear that were exposed, but once again attacked by a Peregrine Falcon and they moved south. The only other Knot seen were 12 on the middle skear. This is the last tide for over a week when the outer skear will be exposed. It will be interesting to see how things change.

Pale-bellied Brent geese 5 flew to the north.

Eider 65

Red-breasted Merganser 4

Great Crested Grebe 2

Shag 1

Herring Gull, Cormorant and Shag

It was resting on a Honeycomb worm reef out from the green marker post. This clip shows the location, but not so much of it will be showing tomorrow.

There seemed to be a lot more Oystercatcher today, probably as not much of the outer skear was available to them. 2,500 on the skear and similar numbers along the waterline to the south. I always thought Oystercatcher was a bit of a misnomer. Oysters don't need much "catching", and of course hereabouts it is Mussels not Oysters that they are "catching". To be fair they do need a bit prising to free them, then the Oystercatchers display their real skill, opening mussels. I've split this clip in two as it is too long to upload as one, and both the start and end are of interest.

This clip begins with an Oystercatcher with a mussel, it places it down then appears to fend off a potential rival. But it then defecates on, or near, the mussel and leaves it for the other bird to open and eat. Some kind of bonding? Note the Turnstone are always around and are ready to clear any remnants from the opened shells.

This clip begins just before the one above ends. Watch the lower Oystercatcher and the apparent ease at which it opens quite a large mussel, the trick is to find the right spot to wedge it in to.

Curlew 35

Turnstone 45

Redshank 120

Dunlin 8 with

Ringed Plover 6

Heliport wall (Howard)

The Oystercatchers started to fill the outerwall 2 hours before peak tide with no Knot until a small flock of c200 arrived and placed themselves in the middle of the wall on the water line, a larger flock then appeared from over heysham head, they did a flyby then headed south over the harbour and that was it for them.

One of two Rock Pipits at the heliport

South shore - Mike Stocker

Adult Shag mouth of Heysham Harbour 1600,

Rock Pipit by wooden jetty

31 Pale-bellied Brent geese 1530 red nab