Dodging raindrops......unsuccessfully

It rained all day, fortunately not as heavily as forecast.  A light SE breeze.

Heysham Nature Reserve - Jean

Nothing much to report, although 9 Blackbirds and 5 Moorhen feeding in the area just west of the office was quite a sight. I counted 27 Blackbirds on a circuit of the reserve but probably more than that. 2 Cetti’s Warblers were singing, one by the main track into the car park and one in the tank farm.

Middleton Nature Reserve - Malcolm

A quick look at the two main ponds

Main Pond

Mute Swan 2

Mallard 31

Gadwall 3

Coot 4 

Moorhen 2

"no swimming" pond

Mute Swan 1

Tufted Duck 4

Gadwall 2

Little Grebe 1

Moorhen 1

These shots and clip were actually taken yesterday. I saved them for today anticipating a complete washout. It was raining then too.

Gadwall pair

Little Grebe

Tufted Ducks

It was time for a preen

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:45 - 14:15

Only a 30 minute walk, mainly as today's low water was only 3.7m so very little skear was exposed. High water was only 7.1m, so a tidal range today of just 3.4m! The other reason for the short duration was that the initial light rain became heavier.

Little Egret 4

Little Egret and Lesser Black-Backed gull

Eider 2

Red-breasted Merganser 4 (2 + 2)

Red-breasted Merganser, its mate has just dived under 

Oystercatcher c1500

Knot c2000 spread around the skear edges

A small flock of Knot with the unmistakable twin turrets of the new StenaLine 
ship emerging from the gloom on the horizon 

They were feeding busily.

Knot. No colour marked birds seen today, but I only checked for a few minutes.
 In this terrain, you can see lots of birds, but typically not so many legs.

Redshank c60

Curlew 13

Turnstone - just 2 seen there were almost certainly more

Janet's male Sparrowhawk is becoming a regular. This is from yesterday when
it paid at least two visits. I bet the other regular visitors are delighted!

Just out of the recording area. I had a walk along Clay Lane to check the adjacent fields - Malcolm

Just one small feeding flock of 78 Pink-Footed geese were in the field opposite to the entrance to Heysham Moss Nature Reserve. There were no other geese to be seen. Four Egrets just beyond the cattle were just Little Egrets.

Some of the Pink-Footed geese

This Pheasant was feeding with them