Plenty of Brent in plenty of places

A dry and mainly sunny day. A light north wind veering to east by evening 

Female Siskin on Kevin Eaves' garden feeder this morning 

South shore

I checked this morning towards high water - Malcolm

Goldcrest 1 in the Nature Park 

Pale-bellied Brent goose at least 18 on Red Nab (more later)

Wigeon 120 on Red Nab

Eider 1 male

Little Egret 2

Curlew 40+ on Red Nab

Brent Geese, Wigeon and Curlew

Brent Geese on the edge of Red Nab and the new StenaLine freight ship behind.

You can tell when it is in dock, its towers literally tower over the rest of the dock. I noticed today that the red tops of the tower were rotating whilst it was docked, but as it left the harbour I could see that it was the whole of the tower rotating. I took this clip to demonstrate, you can see the writing at the base of the tower rotate as well as the red tops. Obviously part of the wind assisted propulsion system, I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it is a nice quiet ship.

Rock Pipit 1 along the foreshore 

Rock Pipit

Kevin Eaves saw the adult Shag in the harbour 

Janet checked this afternoon as the Pale-bellied Brent geese were returning to Red Nab, but with new recruits at least 50 total.

North shore

David Kaye reported Knot roosting on the rocks around Heysham Head

This is a Scottish flagged Knot, unfortunately the orange flag not showing 

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:45 - 15:00

There were 300 Knot feeding along the waterline to the south of the skear. As I checked them for flags several medium sized flock flew towards the skear. At least 2000 total, but many must have continued further north as I could only find 800 on the skear and they too soon left for the north.

Pale-bellied Brent geese at least 48 flew north, many heading for the rocks out from the fishing platform.

Brent Geese and Knot heading north

Some of the Brent on the rocks out from the fishing platform, the rocks
here look quite green with gutweed

Eider 140 

I'd waded out a little to get a better angle to check the Knot when this fine
drake swam right past me, almost within touching range.

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Female Merganser with Eider