A dry day with the odd sunny spell. A very light west(ish) breeze.
South shore -Malcolm 09:15 - 09:45
Just a quick check from saltmarsh to Red Nab
Saltmarsh
Linnet 120
Reed Bunting 3
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| Reed Bunting |
Lapwing 5
Curlew 4
Little Egret 2
Pied Wagtail 2
They light produced some interesting effects
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| Curlew |
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| Little Egret and Lapwing |
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| Lapwing |
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| Pied Wagtail |
There were just 5 more Pied Wagtails and a couple of Robins along the foreshore.
Red Nab
Pale-bellied Brent goose 11
Shelduck 4
Wigeon 88
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| Look how flat the sea is! |
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| Brent geese, Wigeon and a Shelduck |
Heysham skear - Malcolm 14:45 - 16:30
Pale-bellied Brent geese 14. Possibly this morning's 11 plus 3 that were feeding separately
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| Some of the Brent geese amongst the Honeycomb worm clumps in the skear corner |
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| The light was fading quickly and by 15:25 they headed off to the west |
Red-breasted Merganser 2
Goldeneye 1 female or immature male
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| Goldeneye |
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| A nice size comparison with Eider |
Great Crested grebe 4
Oystercatcher c1500
Curlew 30
Redshank c50
Knot 26
Turnstone 40
Dunlin 1
Ringed Plover 3
I managed to get to the edge of the middle skear today, possibly the last time till next spring (to get this far you need something approaching low water on a spring tide, which are typically between 05:00 - 0700 and 17:00 - 19:00. All in the dark in winter. Indeed the light was already fading and it was almost dark by the time I returned to the promenade). A week or so ago I said that the recent storms seemed to have little effect on the skear, but that was the inner skear. It was a different story out here.
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| All the substrate has been scoured away. Leaving just the boulders and empty Mussel shells on the skear bottom. All the live and partially small Mussels will have gone with the underlaying mud. Probably explaining the recent lack of Knot. |
