Just a quick high tide check today

Overcast, light morning showers with heavier ones in the afternoon with the odd sunny spell. A freshening south wind.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Rosemary and Peter managed another visit yesterday.

It was certainly much quieter in terms of dragonflies and damselflies with only brief glimpses of sun and a cool breeze at times.  Sightings were as follows:

Southern End:

Speckled Wood 7

Noon Fly 1

Common Darter 1 pr ovipositing

Male Common Darter 6

Female Common Darter 2 (one eating food)

Hawker sp 2

Chiffchaff calling

Coal Tit calling

Main Pond:

Speckled Wood 3

Common Darter 1 pr mating

Male Common Darter 3

Common Blue Damselfly 1

Mute Swan 2

Mallard 4

Coot 2

Long Tailed Tit 1 small flock

This female Common Darter looks to be eating a blackberry, but it would
have to be a tiny blackberry. Plus dragonflies are insectivorous. This must be 
all that remains of some sort of insect 

This one acting as bridgekeeper on the wooden bridge on the south side

Common Darters on the Southern pond

Common Darters on the main pond

Common Blue Damselfly on the main pond

Noon Fly

Speckled Wood 

South shore - Malcolm 10:15 - 11:00

Linnet c200 on saltmarsh 

Wheatear 1 on foreshore 

Robin 2 on foreshore 

Rock Pipit 1 between foreshore and Red Nab

Rock Pipit 

Knot flock of c100 flew south
Mediterranean gull 12 on Red Nab - 5 adults, 6 2nd calendar year and 1 1st calendar year 

An adult between two 2cy Mediterranean gulls.
The bird on the right has a red ring, not easy to see on dark legs

Ringed as a chick in Hungary last year. It was seen in Spain in February 
and turned up here in June, although it hasn't been seen since July. Pete
advises that there were c50 Meds in the Lune estuary out from Sunderland 
Point today. Perhaps that is where it has been roosting.

Two more 2cy Mediterranean Gulls

This 2cy Mediterranean Gull has some gutweed. Not sure what it was
planning to do with it

1cy Mediterranean Gull centre

Heliport wall - Malcolm

Just a brief stop off on the way home to see if any of the Knot were using this high water root. They weren't. 

Plenty of Oystercatchers roosting 

This one had grabbed the tail of another and physically swung it round.
It was lucky not to lose a feather

Some of the roosting Lapwings

Two of at least four Meadow Pipits

Knot arriving in numbers

A dry day with the odd short sunny spell. A SW breeze

South shore - Malcolm 09:45 - 11:00

It was quite gloomy again so I set off from Potts Corner to allow what light there was to be behind me. There was a large group of waders resting on the mud quite high up the beach within the recording area.

Knot c1500

Dunlin c500

Grey Plover 14

And a Teal!

Knot and Grey Plovers

Teal (by size mainly, they are Dunlin with it)

I wasn't on them for long when they set off purposefully south. It was clear that they weren't coming back. I don't think anything spooked them, they just know that such gently sloping beaches are covered very quickly by these spring tides. The whole beach was covered 15 minutes later.

I walked the tide in a while but the only other waders seen were Oystercatchers flying from Red Nab, a steady procession of Curlew south in small groups and a Bar-Tailed Godwit also heading south.

Bar-Tailed Godwit 

Shelduck at least 80

There was another smaller group of waders on the beach as I walked back beyond the recording area. This included 200 Knot, 35 Grey Plover, 100 Dunlin and a Sanderling.

Sanderling with a Dunlin

None of the Knot checked this morning were colour marked

Heysham skear - Malcolm 15:15 - 17:00

There were at least 2000 Knot here too. Initially three flighty flocks

One of three flocks of Knot

They all ended up settling in one area. They must have been finding food easily as they remained in the same area for 30 minutes, before heading out further west on the skear. 

Many of the Knot were juveniles. This one is just swallowing a seed mussel

This is the sight and sound of Knot happily cleaning up the seed mussels

The terrain here is difficult for spotting any colour coded rings and flags. It alway is! But I had plenty of time and checked the feeding birds from all sides and couldn't see any coded birds.

There will be some somewhere. One of the schemes at the Wadden Sea, Holland fits tiny transmitters to a few birds as well as colour coded rings. Its website has noted that some of the Knot have been leaving to the west. It is an interesting website if you would like to know more visit

https://maps.nioz.nl/watlas/

More of the Knot with transmitters have left since I posted this link. There may be none if you look.

Oystercatcher, Curlew, Redshank and Turnstone similar to recent visits

There were only c100 Herring gulls feeding on the skear, but Black-Headed Gulls plus a few large gulls were feeding in the drains. These spring tides drain so quickly that shrimps and small fish find themselves exposed.

Little Egret 7

Grey Heron 1

Eider 1 male

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Mergansers

Merganser and Redshank 

We had to rely on yesterday's sun for any colour today

Very low cloud all day. When it wasn't actually raining, it looked like it should be! A very light variable breeze.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Peter and Rosemary managed another visit while the sun shone yesterday.

There were far fewer dragonflies around than there have been lately but those that were there put on a show for us.

We were fortunate to see a pair of Migrant Hawkers mating and they waited long enough for us to get some good pictures before they separated - something we didn't realise they were going to do. 

Migrant Hawkers on the southern pond

Common Darters

Common Blue Damselfly (electric blue in this shot)

Noon Fly

Mute Swans on the main pond

Algae forming an "algae-mite"

South shore 

I checked the shore out from the saltmarsh this morning 09:00 - 10:45. I was hoping to do this walk yesterday but I didn't have time. Shame, it would have been better with the better light and the lower tide. Today's inrushing tide didn't allow the waders to settle for long. At least it more or less stayed dry.

Linnet 200+ on the saltmarsh 

Linnet, plus a view of the shore where I was heading

There was nothing along the foreshore except more Linnet and a couple of Robins.

Shelduck very mobile, but at least 60

Shelduck 

Mallard 3 flew south from Red Nab

Mallard

Little Egret 7

Grey Heron 1 flew north

There were 3000+ waders. 

Bar-Tailed Godwit 14

Grey Plover 8

Knot c2500

Dunlin c500

Sanderling 2

Knot and Dunlin and a Godwit. The visibility was terrible and the birds mobile. 
I failed to see any colour coded birds, in fact I failed to see any colour!

Grey Plover and Knot

Sanderling and Knot. The Sanderling on the right is a juvenile 

I thought I took a video of both Sanderlings, but if I did I misplaced it! It was that sort of day. Just one Sanderling with Knot and Dunlin in this clip.

These are Knot and Dunlin frantically trying to feed ahead of the tide. Although one bird just looked as if it was settling an old score.

 Redshank 120 around the saltmarsh 

Redshank. 

Common Snipe 4 lifted from the saltmarsh.

Lapwing 3 on the saltmarsh 

Lapwing amongst the Samphire 

Stonechat 1 female type on the eastern edge of the saltmarsh.

Stonechat 

Clouded Yellow 1 flew past me heading south at 10:30

Janet checked later

Redshank its legs were a lovely splash of colour on a drab day.

Turnstone 

Little Egret

One of two Rock Pipits on the small pebble beach between the foreshore and Red Nab

Wheatear 1 female type near the lighthouse - Kevin