A Long-Tailed Tit-fest and a budgie!

A dry day with a cold south wind drifting to SE after lunch. Some sunny spells.

Middleton Nature Reserve main pond - Rosemary and Peter Silvester 

Mute Swans, Greylag Goose, Cormorant, Tufted Duck and Black-Headed gulls

Great Tit

Long-Tailed Tits

Imperial Rd - Rosemary and Peter Silvester 

We did see the stonechats, along with a couple of magpies, a robin and a kestrel 

But for us it's been a Long Tailed Tit day!

Heysham skear - Malcolm

I started at 11:00 as the skear was becoming exposed

Pale-bellied Brent goose 12 flew north

Pale-bellied Brent geese

Pink-Footed goose 14 flew west

Eider 8

The south wind was already slightly to the east, not typically ideal conditions to attract the Knot but 3000+ turned up!

Knot carpeting the skear

Still some with hints of summer plumage 

Unfortunately most of them just rested in difficult terrain to check for flags.

We are at the lowest of the neap tides at the moment and the tide was very slow going out. It had got to 12:30 and most of the Knot were still resting. I was supposed to be on my way to the chippy ("sorry, long queue!"), so I decided to leave them be and return at low water.

Wrong decision! When I returned at 14:00 the Knot were all but gone. Just four were resting on the skear, a small flock of 100 were flying around but wouldn't land. Presumably the Peregrines had been active!

Oystercatcher 2000

Icelandic scheme Oystercatcher - details awaited 
Interestingly, there should be a white as well as a black ring on the left leg.
It seems that the black ring has slipped over the white one. The "rings" are only
made of very thin plastic and the ends overlap to allow expansion and fitting. 

Redshank 150

Turnstone 40

This escaped budgie was opposite Broadgate garage on Middleton Rd at 4pm - Pete