Very little happening

Visible migration

Pink-footed goose c100 NW + 10 South
Swallow 12
Meadow pipit 3 + 1 south
Goldfinch 4 south
Linnet 6

Shag 4 juv harbour area
Little gull adult outfalls
Mediterranean gull 1st s wooden jetty area
Bar-tailed godwit below NHW
Red-breasted merganser 'in'
Wheatear 1 NHW + 2 Ocean Edge
Raven 2 over Middleton Ind. Est.
Grasshopper warbler in bushes at Red Nab 0630 hrs

No sign Caspian gull this morning

Major surprise at Middleton

Heysham Obs
Middleton IE
A late afternoon visit saw a 1st W/S Caspian Gull, probably female bathing, preening, swimming, flying (etc) on the Model Boat pond with other large gulls. It showed all the requisite features with the slight worry about overall size probably indicating it was a female. It flew towards the outfalls/Red Nab after ten minutes and could not be found as all the large gulls were quite a distance off shore in poor light courtesy of raptorial gull-scaring activities around the power station

Four Common Sandpiper were also on the Model Boat pond [=5 for the day, a spring record!]. 3 Snipe lingering.

Two singing male Grasshopper Warbler - please observe these birds ONLY from the concrete roads. Thanks

The rest of the day was a bit of a disappointment

Grounded/ringing
Wheatear - At least 15
Redstart - 2 males (one ringed)
Willow Warbler - disappointing with just 4 ringed
Blackcap - 3 ringed
Lesser Whitethroat - absolute minimum of 7 singing males in the Obs recording area. An odd feature of this week has been listening to this species daily without any Common Whitethroat

Vis mig 0815-1115 mainly from the north harbour wall
Pink-footed Goose - two late flocks of 65 and 19 north
Collared Dove - 1 north
Cormorant - one high to the north
Goldfinch - 1 north
Linnet - 7 north
Meadow Pipit - 62 north
Swallow - 37 north
Siskin - 1 north

Sea passage
Just three Arctic Tern (first of the year) north together early morning
2 Sandwich Tern early morning
ZERO on the early incoming tide

Inshore
Common Sandpiper - first of the year on the rocks by the harbour
Shag - 5 juveniles
Med Gull - 1st S by the north wall first thing - female bill structure rules out the return of the wintering bird
Little Gull - adult by Stage 2 outfall late afternoon - presumably the long-stayer

Elsewhere
Osprey over Jenny Brown's Point mid-afternoon.

Other
Please note that the email address for Jean Roberts has now been corrected.

A few decent seabirds including first Manx Shearwater of the year

Heysham Obs
Lengthy coverage of the sea today but starting not quite as early as perhaps we should, despite the low early morning tide. Having just read the recently set-up Walney site: http://walneybo.blogspot.com
.........the absence of an earlier seawatch cost us quite a few sightings. If and when the spring seawatching really gets going, comparison with the Walney site, any seawatching data on the Fylde site and the Solway skua data should be interesting. (For the latter see www.trektellen.nl , click on English in the top right corner and then Great Britain along the top and then choose Bowness on Solway from the list).

Seawatching
1000-1530
VELVET SCOTER - 2 males flying out at 1323hrs
Manx Shearwater - At least 6, possibly 8 seen - the first of the year
Gannet - adult
Common Scoter - flock of 6
Red-throated Diver - c15 sightings but possibly only 10 or so individuals - included a flock of 5 'in'
Skua spp - one flew into the Bay, gaining height, in the early morning. It was considered to be a light morph Pomarine but will have to remain as a 'spp'.

Inshore
1st S Med Gull and adult Little Gull. 5 juvenile Shag. 88 Turnstone on the wooden jetty at high tide (but no Purple Sandpiper)

Vis
Just one Swallow north during the coverage from the north harbour wall!

Grounded
Nothing obvious

Mammals
Distant Harbour Porpoise late morning

Elsewhere
The pair of Garganey still at Aldcliffe - back on the YW Darter pond this evening. Red Kite Langden area

A useless 'nice sunny day'

Heysham Obs
Vis mig
Just about the only sign of any migratory life was a small Swallow and Meadow Pipit passage of about 11 per hour for the first two hours (0800-1000) and, in the case of Swallow, impressions of a similar rate for the next two hours. Two Goldfinch flew north

Grounded
The ringers had a sensible day off and the only definite grounded migrant was a Wheatear on the mound.

Sea passage
Zero unless you count two northbound Shelduck -this was at the optimum start of the incoming tide 0800-1000. I cannot recall the sea being so dead in mid-April on the incoming tide

Inshore
Better: 1st S Med Gull, ad Little Gull (probably the long-stayer) in with c60 Common and c20 Black-headed Gull. Unfortunately Stage 2 Power Station is on a 58 day 'outage' and it may be some time before nice warm dilute 'soup' starts flowing along the outfalls. The juvenile Shag total definitely reached 4 and could have been 5 - commuting to and from the wooden jetty and feeding sites

Middleton IE
Singing Grasshopper Warbler. Water Rail reported by visiting birders. 5 Tufted Duck.

Quiet day with clear north-westerlies

Heysham Obs
Grounded/ringing
The ringing optimist seemed to be heading for a Norwegian Eurovision entry sort of morning but four migrants were eventually caught, including this Lesser Whitethroat:.


Thanks to John Wood for this photo

Inshore
Shag 4 juv wooden jetty
Mediterranean gull 1st S around the wooden jetty
Common gull 38
Turnstone 56 wooden jetty
Oystercatcher 520 heliport
Redshank 14 Heliport/wooden jetty

Rest of WeBS (other than Cormorant (13) & large gulls) displaced elsewhere by very high tide

Offshore movement
Ringed plover 7 'in'
Shelduck 2 'out'
Mute swan 2 in/across

Vis mig
alba wagtail 2
Meadow pipit 9
Sand martin 1
Swallow 4
Linnet 1

Elsewhere
Ad summer Purple Sandpiper on Morecambe West End Battery groyne with Turnstone & Redshank (probably displaced from Regent Road groyne (next one to the north) by pit bull types being exercised there). Very dodgy Red-breasted Goose on the most SW pit of Borwick Waters fishing complex (formerly Dockacres) - visible from the footpath along the Keer or by paying £1-50 to enter the site. In a similar vein, one of the Mandarin on the pond at Ashley's Farm, High Tatham is 'wild' & not therefore part of the collection.

Upper Hindburn this evening provided the Silly Lane Short-eared Owl, a wandering 1st CY Hen Harrier over White Moss and Pied Fly and Redstart attending boxes. There were still 45+ Fieldfare.

The Pied Fly was ring-read attending the nest (earliest ever in Britain?!) = male ringed as a nestling at Colleyholme Wood, Slaidburn on 10/6/04. Thanks for the details.

NB check Portland BO website this evening to find out what a 'fall' really is as the cross channel birds hit the weak cold front over the south coast this morning !

First Whimbrel of the year

Heysham Obs
Grounded/ringing
Only about a dozen birds ringed including 7 Willow Warbler , 2 Blackcap and a Jay. Redstart male on Tank Farm fence. Wheatear male on willows in Tank Farm; female Ocean Edge

Inshore
Whimbrel Red Nab
Oystercatcher c550 RN
Common Gull 18 RN
Shelduck 8 RN
Red-breasted merganser male off RN
Eider 3m 2f off RN
Ringed plover RN
Redshank c50 OE

Vis Mig
Meadow Pipit 10 North
Swallow 3 North

Insects
Large Red Damselfly Middleton IE

Elsewhere
3 Short-eared Owl on moorland to the east of Lowgill this evening

Crossbill surprise

Heysham Obs
Grounded
An otherwise routine migration morning livened up by an adult female Common Crossbill in the mist nets. This is the first of this species to be ringed here and it remained until at least 1215hrs. The first (male) Common Redstarts of the year were predictable (one by the office, one at Ocean Edge). A single-figure handful of Willow Warbler, Blackcap and Chiffchaff were also ringed. Just 4 Wheatear logged

Sea
7 Sandwich tern and 3 (adult) Gannet (together)

Middleton IE
Now 2 singing male Grasshopper Warbler. Green Sandpiper on the Model Boat pond

Misc
2 juv Shag on the wooden jetty. No overhead vis recording today.

Elsewhere
Pair of Garganey still on Aldcliffe but on another pond. Otherwise north Lancs apparently strangely lacking in any passage birds of interest, although the routine Common Redstart arrival was noted at sites other than Heysham (e.g. Leighton Moss). Perhaps the most significant record for what is now becoming a very early spring was a Large Red Damselfly in nearby Cumbria. Time to start checking ponds!

Nice clear run for migrants but not a lot to concentrate them on the coast

Heysham Obs
The theme of this posting (see also Elsewhere) is an impression that many birds are dropping in on a broad front exactly where they want to be!

Grounded
New species for the year comprised Lesser Whitethroat (at least 2, including a bird ringed in a previous year & the earliest ever at Heysham by 5 days (I think)) and Grasshopper Warbler. The latter was on Middleton IE. Ringing revealed an early morning spurt of migrants producing single figures of Blackcap, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff in the nets but nothing subsequent to this. This is typical of misty but cloudless mornings. Unfortunately the OE/Red Nab end was not covered but there were 6 Wheatear elsewhere.

Vis Mig
Murkier than yesterday with fewer birds: North Harbour 0700-1000hrs. Evidence of some disorientation in the murk with some Meadow Pipit coming 'in-off' and heading south and another 'flopping' down on the mound for an hour before moving off north:

Meadow Pipit 48
alba Wagtal 6
Redpoll spp 2
Swallow 5
Goldfinch 8
Linnet 17

Sea passage
Visibility poor. 4 Sandwich Tern in and 3 Common Scoter in

Misc
2 juv Shag on wooden jetty, outfalls not checked for Little Gull. No sign of Purple Sandpiper with Turnstone numbers down to 18 (this is not unusual with spring passage records)

Insects
A few male Orange Tip & lots of Brimstone. Parsnip Moth and Bramble shoot Moth new for the year in the trap (both micros). First (very early) Large Red Damselfly of the year in the NR marsh

Elsewhere
At least 6 male and one female Pied Flycatcher in Upper Hindburndale but no sign of any Redstart. Osprey low over Aldclife at 1435hrs - presumably heading north. Pair & additional adult Med. Gull Leighton Moss. At least two Lesser Whitethroat Aldcliffe along with a pair of GARGANEY until at least 1700hrs on the pond which held Yellow-winged Darter last year (c300m north of Aldcliffe Lane). A moth trapping session in the woodland just east of Silverdale Moss this evening saw 4 Barred Tooth-striped, 12 Lunar Marbled Brown, Waved Umber and White Pinion-spotted plus the more usual culprits at this time of year.

Some quality but most definitely not quantity

Heysham Obs
Vis mig
As is typical with the reduced number of Linnet and Goldfinch, this morning's vis was undertaken from the north harbour wall 0800-1000. All birds flying to the north-east

Tree Pipit 1
Goldfinch 5
Kestrel 1
Linnet 15
Meadow Pipit 136
Redpoll spp 2
Swallow 5

Some (but not many) casual observations from the office area later in the morning included a small falcon heading north very high presumably either Merlin or Kestrel, probably the former.

on or over the sea....
Sandwich Tern - at least 2
Red-throated Diver 2

inshore/outfalls/wooden jetty
PURPLE SANDPIPER with c40 Turnstone on the rocks below the wooden jetty
Little Gull: adult & 2 1st W/S
Shag 3 juvs

Grounded passerines
Wheatear 8
very little else with perhaps just 6 Willow Warbler, including one in-off at the north wall. A meagre ringing total also included single Blackcap and Chiffchaff

Middleton IE
Lingering wildfowl in the form of a single Goldeneye, 5 Tufted Duck and two Teal. Also 5 Snipe

Mammals
2 female Roe Deer on the IE

Insects
Small White (2) IE. Single female Large White flew north past the office

Elsewhere
Male Pied Flycatcher singing and showing well as I was emptying a moth trap in upper Hindburndale (same bird as yesterday). 66 Fieldfare White Moss, just west of Hindburndale

Not brilliant - a bit too clear

Heysham Obs
Grounded
c6 Willow warbler, 2 + new Chiffchaff, 3 Wheatear

Vis Mig (no coverage overlooking the sea) c0900-1100
Goldfinch 45 north
Linnet 32 north
Meadow Pipit 18 north
Grey Heron 1+1+1 high to the north, well spaced
Woodpigeon - flock of 5 high to the NE
Swallow 11 north
Sparrowhawk Female flying NE VERY high

Misc
The three Little Gulls are still there - on the tideline by Heysham 2 outfall. Just one juv Shag located

Moths
A Hummingbird Hawk-moth flew past the NR office about 1030hrs

Elsewhere
No definite sign of the Lune valley Whooper Swans. Short-eared Owl showing exceedingly well in upper Hindburn near Botton Head - travelled at 19mph alongside the car for 1/4 mile!
Nearby, 12+ Bramblings in mixed flock feeding on fallen larch cones. Widespread arrival of Willow Warbler males e.g. singing as I type this at High Tatham