Gulls, picking and choosing, and a splendid evening session

Another dry sunny day with the morning light NE breeze freshening and shifting to NW by the afternoon and West by this evening.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 07:20:10:00

Low water was at 09:20.

Eider 6

Female Eider

Grey Heron 1

Little Egret 3

Swallow 2

Oystercatcher 1,000

Curlew 2

Whimbrel 2

Bar-Tailed Godwit 24 - these are 13 coming in to land.

Bar-Tailed Godwit and Oystercatchers 

Knot 3

Knot, one in advanced summer plumage 

Not sure if they were feeding on the seed mussels or finding invertebrates between them.

Ringed Plover 7 in one flock

Ringed Plover, although this shot is to show the size of the smaller seed mussels.

Seed mussels are arriving all the time and cover much of the skear, but the earlier ones to arrive are now quite large and require breaking before the gulls can eat them. The ones in the above shot are the lower size and there are a full range of sizes in between. Some of the gulls have changed their feeding habits and are swallowing several of what must be the optimum size mussels. That is, small enough to swallow whole but providing much more protein for minimum effort. They then just rest a while before eating more.

Gulls 1,500 mainly Herring.

Many of the gulls were standing openly and at first I couldn't find any ringed ones amongst them. This is a typical group of the ones selecting larger mussels.

Other groups were feeding more franticly on smaller mussels. But these chose to do so in shallow water.

But as the tide ebbed, the birds were left on the skear, and after two hours I managed to locate and read 7 ringed birds. 3 new for here this year.

This one from a new scheme, just two characters J|R
This gull was eventually identified as a 2nd summer Caspian gull
See post 28/07/25 for details and more shots.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Janet just managed a 30 minute check around the main pond.

The adult Mute Swans were lifting weed to the surface for the cygnets to feed on.

Two of four feeding Swifts

Broad-bodied Chaser

Common Blue

Green-Veined White

I couldn't resist another look this evening as the tide was uncovering the skear (Malcolm). 17:40 - 19:40

The wind was now due west and quite fresh. It was a lovely evening, but the low sun made looking out to sea difficult. Which was a shame as soon as I got on the beach I could hear.......

Kittiwakes calling directly between me and the sun! 

They were milling around, only 300m out from the promenade, but very difficult to see. After a while they decided to head off north and gained height. I just managed to count them as they left. 56 at least.

There were c300 gulls around, but I couldn't see any ringed ones. Then soft calls alerted me that there was something else of interest out there and moving quickly. This time heading south, but again I couldn't find them till they had moved out of the light.

Avocets 2

Avocets

Avocets circled in this location shot

Sanderlings 4 - this is the species I had been hoping to see on the skear, and I think these four had been, but I only saw them flying off low to the north.

Black-Tailed Godwit 2 - they fed for a while on the skear before continuing north.

Black-Tailed Godwit

Unfortunately, I am busy tomorrow evening, but will check again in the morning 

Just out of the recording area. Janet also got a shot of a male Common Heath moth on Heysham Moss Nature Reserve yesterday 

Common Heath moth