Murky!

Very low thick cloud all day producing a few light showers.  A west wind.

Some additional ringing data for yesterday by Alan

Yesterday, 4th Oct,  Jean and Pete covered Heysham and I went to Middleton, then assisted at Heysham later on.  There was little overhead movement so the total of 83 captures was a mix of migrants, feeder birds and locals. Four Grey Wagtails were added to the colour ringing total and four Cetti's Warblers were caught, including a recovery of one ringed elsewhere.
The overall totals were:

	Heysham		Middleton
	New	Retrap	New	Retrap	Total
Wren	1		1		2
Chiffchaff	1	1	1		3
Chaffinch	1				1
Robin	1	1	1		3
Great Tit	1	2	8		11
Dunnock	1	3			4
Greenfinch	9	2			11
Goldfinch	14	8			22
Goldcrest		1	1		2
Grey Wagtail	1		3		4
Great Spotted Woodpecker	1				1
Blue Tit	1	1	4	1	7
Long-tailed Tit			7		7
Cetti's Warbler			3	1	4
Reed Bunting			1		1
Grand Total	32	19	30	2	83

Today started off brightly enough, Kevin had a nice moth in his trap.

Ni Moth - It's a fairly rare migrant to the North of England and breeds
in Southern Europe and North Africa. 

Middleton Nature Reserve - Janet

Common Buzzard being mobbed by gulls again.

These three Roe Deer were near the road on the south side. No camera but she managed this video with her phone.

Heysham skear - Malcolm 13:45 - 15:00

Very low neap tides now. I went out at low water, but there wasn't far to go. Visibility was dreadful!

The ferry heading out of the harbour with the StenaLine emerging out of the gloom

Nothing passed overhead and the only birds seen on the sea we a couple of Red-breasted Mergansers.

Red-breasted Merganser

Little Egret 8

Little Egret and Redshank

Little Egret

Not as many waders as recent, mainly as there wasn't as much skear as recent. Although there were still at least 1500 Knot. I failed to see any colour coded ones, but it was hard enough picking out the Knot from the background.

The summer plumage birds was a bit easier to see

Its eating a seed mussel in this shot 

Flock of Starlings heading back to shore. I think they just come out here
to collect grit