First butterfly

A very warm and dry sunny day. The temperature peaked at 16° at 14:30. A fresh SE wind.

Heysham skear - low water 10:00 (Malcolm)

I set out early in the ebbing tide and followed it out.

No sign of Brent or Pink-Footed geese, but...

Canada Goose 1 flew south

Canada goose

Eider only 4 seen

No Merganser or Grebes seen.

I went out early for a better chance of checking the Knot for any flagged birds. We are quickly moving back to neap tides, but today's tide still drained quickly. This causes small shrimps to become stranded in shallow pools and wet mud, where they burry themselves and wait for the tide to return. 

3,000 Knot were on the skear and they had other ideas about what should happen to the stranded shrimps.

It was very nice seeing so many Knot, but very difficult checking many of them for flags when they are feeding like this.

Grey Heron with Knot, Oystercatcher and a Redshank.
There were also two Little Egrets

There was only one Peregrine attack this morning, and the Knot quickly resettled, which tends to mean the attack was successful and the Knot "know" the Peregrine won't need to return for a while. So at least I had plenty of time and ended up with a good tally of flagged birds including at least six new to the skear this winter.

This one is part of a Norwegian scheme

This is a UK scheme bird, almost certainly new for the skear this winter,
but unfortunately just avoiding identification this visit - you can't win them all!

The other waders similar to recent.

Heysham Nature Reserve 

Small Tortoiseshell - Janet

South shore  (Kevin)

Pale-bellied Brent goose 20 on Red Nab

Chiffchaff singing along the dog walking path