Better variety today

Once again we were blessed with heavy overnight showers followed by a dry sunny day. A fresh west breeze

This from Rosemary and Peter Silvester - Middleton Nature Reserve yesterday 

Main pond:

Small Red-eyed Damselfly

Common Bluetail Damselfly 

Common Blue Damselfly 

Common Darter

Emperor 

also saw about half a dozen of Common Blue Butterflies, lots of Meadow Browns (everywhere!) and several toadlets.

The Ruddy Darters were by the pond on the south side

Ruddy Darters

South shore - Malcolm 09:45 - 11:15

I went along the sea wall to watch the incoming tide cover the feeding beach by the wooden jetty. Again hoping to relocate the green ringed bird seen on Wednesday. Today one was there!

There were gulls being moved up the beach by the tide, including 
six Mediterranean gulls. Just one was ringed

ANLT. We are familiar with this bird. Ringed as a chick at Helgoland Germany
in 2012. It has been seen at Heysham most summers since. Last year it was also 
seen on its German breeding ground. Hopefully it will have been seen again this
year - details awaited

Probably not the one from Wednesday, but I had forgotten that,
on one code the "A" was very worn which can cause confusion.

At least 9 Mediterranean gulls in total, there were some resting on the other beaches with Black-Headed gulls

Mediterranean (centre) and Black-Headed gulls

Gulls between the two outfalls

Little Egret 4

Three Little Egrets along the edge of No.2 outfall

In the Nature Park

Red Admiral 2

Painted Lady 2

Meadow Brown several

Speckled Wood 2

Small White 3

Two Painted Lady

Heysham skear - Malcolm 16:15 - 17:30

Red-breasted Merganser 1

Red-breasted Merganser, about to lose a feather

Eider 2

Eider, also with ruffled feathers

Great Crested grebe 1

Large gulls, mainly Herring gulls c300 (think I underestimated total at 250 yesterday as there seemed to be fewer today but managed 300 when I did a rough count) three ringed birds were seen, but all seen previously this summer. The gull in the centre of this clip in the water has a ring. It slipped into the water before I could read it, but eventually revealed it again. You can see that they are taking much longer now to find the small seed mussels amongst the well formed ones.

N:S53 - ringed as a chick in Bowland 2022

Mediterranean gull 1 

Mediterranean gull with hardly any face mask. It was high up the shore
towards the promenade 

Oystercatcher c1200

Curlew c60

Redshank 16

Turnstone 9

A few of the Curlew arriving from the south. Flying over the area where
the Mediterranean gull was. That's Rydal Rd slipway behind them