Plenty of Gannets and Terns

Another early morning shower followed by a dry and largely sunny day. A cold NE wind in the morning switched to a warmer NW after lunch.

Seawatch report - Pete 0620-0820 hampered by heat haze.  

Sandwich Tern 76 in

Gannet 7 in

Kittiwake 4 in

Guillemot 5 on

Common scoter just one flock of 5,

Arctic Skua two dark morph in together highish then climbed seemingly heading NE

2cy Shag flew across harbour mouth towards wooden jetty 0704.

David Kaye had 9 more gannet 0820-0900 - so 16 in total
a marsh harrier north over the head and skeer just before 1030

Heysham skear - Malcolm

Two checks, 09:15 - 11:00 and 16:30 - 17:00. The following records all this morning unless stated

Eider 2 males and a female

Little Egret 3

Sandwich Tern 70+ this morning, still 20+ this afternoon 

Common Tern 5

The terns along with many large gulls were catching whitebait out in the channels. This is just a fraction of the feeding birds

Seed mussels are just beginning to arrive. Prior to settling into life as a static mussel they are a swimming zooplankton, and at this stage they will be quite large zooplankton. Presumably this is what is attracting the shoals of Whitebait, which in turn attracts the gulls and Terns. Whatever the cause, the effect is plenty of Whitebait to go around. There were typically 50 Sandwich Terns settled on the shore and skear, many awaiting their mate to return and feed them. Interestingly I didn't see any ringed birds today, so clearly a different lot to those around yesterday.

A nice shot of St Peter's church with Sandwich Terns on the mud in the foreground 

Sandwich Tern returning with a "love offering"

But not all offerings were gratefully received, this one tried several potential mates and none were impressed. A measure of the glut of food, or was his technique just not good enough?

The Common Terns were resting on the skear rocks. Five was the most I saw at one time, it is likely there were others.

Common Terns

At 10:30 all the Terns that had been on the mud out from St Peter's shot past me.

I checked out to sea and there was a large raptor with a white head hovering high as it scanned the sea below. It even made an aborted dive, so I assumed it was another Osprey - a mistake, but it just goes to show how relatively common Osprey visits are now.

I was more interested in what had been lifted, but I took a couple of shots of the raptor before checking the skies for anything different. The shots clearly show it to be a Marsh Harrier. 

Marsh Harrier - it must have been eyeing the feeding gulls and Terns, not
fish as I had assumed

When everything settled down, many of the large gulls had moved to the skear.

Most of them were Herring gulls, but not all.

Common Gull

I managed a glimpse of a green ringed adult Herring gull this morning, but didn't 
manage to read it. But I did read this one this afternoon. N:34E
Ringed at Bowland in 2020, its only other sightings were here last summer.

Curlew 1 this morning 2 this afternoon 

Whimbrel 2 this morning 5 this afternoon

Curlew (left) and Whimbrel 

Bar-Tailed Godwit 14 this morning 

Ringed Plover 3 and Dunlin 9 this afternoon - they are a bit easier to see when they move.

Middleton Nature Reserve - Janet

Greenfinch

Common Whitethroat 

Robin taking food to the nest

Azure Blue Damselfly 

Large Red Damselfly 

Green-Veined White

Orange Tip