Such a fine line...................

Heysham Obs
.............between suitable and unsuitable seawatching weather. What was wrong this morning was far too much cloud and rain first thing stopping things moving - e.g. not a single Gannet 0600-0830. A total of at least 7 (6 dm) Arctic Skua so far (all together on the shore at JBP at 1030hrs).

Worth checking on the evening tide otherwise roll on tomorrow.

North harbour wall to 1230hrs
Arctic Skua - 1 dm in & one out, 2 dm in, 3 dm out then sitting on sea, possibly with 1+ other "dark" bird at 1217 (up to 7 at JBP - 1030). Unless more evidence to the contrary, all sightings today could refer to the constituents of the flock of 7 at JBP at 1030hrs, as it is not suitable weather for overland migration from the inner bay.
Manx Shearwater - 2
Common Scoter - 1
Red-throated Diver - 1
Fulmar - 4 (one behind the IOM ferry)
Gannet - 1, plus another late afternoon
Black Guillemot - around wooden jetty
No tern species seen, indicating that the "blogging" Sandwich on calmer days are not the same birds each day

Ocean Edge
Med Gull - 1st summer on shore off OE saltmarsh with other gulls
Whimbrel - 4
Wheatear - 2

Elsewhere
3 Arctic Skua together at JBP headed up the Kent at 0955hrs, then 7 appeared seemingly out of the Kent Estuary, sat on the beach and preened before having another go at flying up the Kent. Nothing happened at JBP prior to 0955hrs. 3 dark-morph Arctic Skuas off JBP in the late evening (different birds or not?)

A taster of things to come?

Heysham Obs
Hopefully someone can cover this evenings incoming tide - looks pretty reasonable for more skuas as the wind backs westerly [see below under Arctic Skua re-mid afternoon low tide]
Much better than expected this morning as there was an extra touch of west in the north-westerly and a nice clear corridor for Irish Sea birds to the south. Most unusual to get this amount of stuff in a north-westerly but it only looks good against some of the recent dross!

Arctic Skua - 10 in (7 dark, 3 light), all before 0815hrs. A short low tide seawatch saw two Arctic Skua fly out along the close low tide channel at 1440hrs (LM & DM)
Fulmar - 1
Manx Shearwater - 6+1+1
Red-throated Diver - 6
Gannet - 24
Arctic Tern - one flock of 12 - unexpected
Sandwich Tern - 5-10 blogging
Common Scoter - 8
Whimbrel - 2

Black Guillemot - one around outer harbour, then flew offshore
Purple Sandpiper - 2 on wooden jetty - despite careful checks, only a maximum of one has been seen recently - therefore one of these could be an extra passage bird, as is to be expected with the spring movement of Turnstones

Elsewhere
Little Stint with Dunlin flock at Cockersands Point

Always check the gulls in the harbour...........

Heysham Obs
Fortunately two birders (Jean Roberts & John Mason) were by the gate at 0725 when all the gulls in the harbour were disturbed. The one departee, via a flightline taking it over the Twite ringing site thence out to sea towards Ulverston, was a juvenile Glaucous Gull. Unfortunately not possible to communicate in time with observers at the end of harbour seawatching site. Always worth scanning gulls on Fisher's roof, by the waterfall etc. on arrival at this site. The Glauc. will probably be a major local year-listing 'blocker' now we have no rubbish tip.

North harbour wall 0600-1000 (mostly pre-0815hrs)
Glaucous Gull - see above
Black Guillemot - by wooden jetty as usual
Gannet - 30 in
Red-throated Diver - 8 in, 2 out
Kittiwake - 1 in
Fulmar - 1 in
Guillemot- 5 in
Sandwich Tern - 12 in plus 7 blogging
Arctic Tern - 1 in
Common Scoter - 27 in
Bonxie (Great Skua) - 1 in at 0749 [Please use both names to facilitate the records search at e.g. the end of year!]
Dark-bellied Brent Goose - 1 out at 0800
Whimbrel - 3 in

Vis (all NE unless stated)
Goldfinch 2
Swallow 6
Linnet 2 SW

Ocean Edge
Wheatear - 4

Elsewhere
Two Yellow Wagtail on Lune south of Wenning

Mayday

North Harbour Wall 0600-0730

S F3 visibility poor at times, excellent at others but generally improving at just about the time I had to leave.

Seawatching:
Gannet 7 in
Guillemot 1 out
Common Scoter 30 out
Sandwich Tern 7 blogging
Black Guillemot below the jetty
Turnstone 115 on the jetty

Vis:
alba Wagtail 2 NE
Swallow 7 NE
Linnet 5 NE
Meadow Pipit 2 NE

Grounded:
Wheatear 1 on the mound

30 seconds in the morning and 15 minutes at high tide

Heysham Obs
Everyone is usually busy on a Thursday and today was no exception! Four very distant birds in poor silhoeutted light heading into the bay just before high tide may just have been skua spp.

Not a single tern reported today!

The conditions in the next few days are quite good for seabirds, although not (apart from perhaps Saturday's slack conditions) Arctic Tern, which specialises in easterly winds.

North wall am
A quick scan of the outer end of Stage One outfall to see if there were any terns followed by an even quicker scan of the low tide channel

Black Guillemot - sat in the low tide channel level with the north wall gate at 1045hrs

OE foreshore near high tide
Bar-tailed Godwit - 175, including the leucistic bird
Knot - 270
Whimbrel - 3
Wheatear - a good total of 24 OE/Red Nab etc.

Middleton IE
A singing Grasshopper Warbler in a new area

Elsewhere
At least one, perhaps two Tree Sparrow Heaton village - a well-known wintering site (courtesy of feeders) but no recent breeding season records

Proving a point?

Heysham Obs
Another wall of weather esconced itself in the southern Irish Sea and theoretically stopped anything progressing north. Therefore 5 hours of good science were spent at Heysham NHW proving the point!

North harbour wall 0700-1200
Gannet - about 12 in/out/fishing
Sandwich Tern - absolute minimum of 140 (one sweep at 0700hrs)
Whimbrel - 4 in, 7 out
Little Gull - 3CY in
Fulmar - one circling over the harbour! and another in
Guillemot - one on the water
Red-throated Diver - one in
Pink-footed Goose - 59 SOUTH! 1155hrs
Wheatear - one 'in off' north harbour wall, one sandworks, 9 OE foreshore
Swallow - 84 NE
Sand Martin - 18 NE
Goldfinch - 5 NE
Meadow Pipit - 5 NE
House Martin - 1 NE
Black Guillemot - by the wooden jetty/offshore

Mammals
One Grey Seal in

Elsewhere
Two Avocet Conder Pool

Early morning tern passage

Heysham Obs
A significant low tide passage of Arctic Tern this morning with birds heading off high inland in the absence of any water in the bay to the north. 3.7ish earthquake at 1120hrs shook the office but did not set any alarms off in the power stations

North harbour wall 0630-0900 - all vis to NE
Arctic Tern - 518, largest flock 140 (see above)
Sandwich Tern - 157 'in' along the low tide channels
Whimbrel - 1 in & 3 at high tide on Red Nab
Red-throated Diver - 2 in
Whooper Swan - one across the bay at 0705hrs (very late)
Linnet - 5
Carrion Crow - one in-off from Walney
Siskin - 3
Redpoll - at least one heard
alba Wagtail - 1
Swallow - 14

Grounded
Robin - one on NHW mound
Wheatear - 9 OE foreshore including 2 very large males

Inshore
Canada Goose - 2 on the sea
Black Guillemot - sitting by the wooden jetty

Elsewhere
Nothing yet. Either a home computer problem or no news of any significance at all from this area. The rain produced good numbers of hirundines on the Dockacres complex, including about 10 House Martin on Borwick Waters

Black-throated Diver eventually identified

Heysham Obs
Ended up as single observer of what I'm on record as saying is the most stringy species in Lancashire (as opposed to the White Wagtail subspecies)! It took 35 minutes to be certain of the identification due to a combination of initial distance and then active feeding. After 'swopping channels' round the end of the sandbank during a dive, it was then seen heading increasingly distantly up the Kent channel and a diver which appeared to be this species was unfortunately rather belatedly picked up in flight heading for south Walney at 0950hrs

North harbour wall 0830-1030hrs (seawatching disrupted by concentrating on the Bk TD)
Black-throated Diver - became aware of it distantly on the sea about 0855hrs, then reasonable views about 35 minutes later (see above). No sign of any breeding plumage therefore most likely to have been a 2CY
Red-throated Diver - 4 in summer plumaged birds in together + single wp/2CY 'in'
Guillemot - c10 floating in, including group of 5
Sandwich Tern - absolute minimum of 50 'in' & presumably the same birds starting to come out and 'ignored' count-wise from about 0945hrs
Arctic Tern - flock of 12 'in' as soon as I got there at 0830 was the only sighting (any missed pre-0830?)
Arctic Skua - dark morph in very high and gaining height at 0844hrs
Purple Sandpiper - 1 under the wooden jetty

No sign of Black Guillemot, despite calm conditions

Ocean Edge/Red Nab/outfalls
Only about half the number of gulls as yesterday & nothing of note amongst them
Bar-tailed Godwit - flock of 217 on the tideline just south of Stage 2 outfall - these are the Lune estuary birds as indicated by the presence of the leucistic individual
Whimbrel - 3

Wheatear
11 Ocean Edge, 3 on the NHW mound, one on heliport

Whinchat
Male on fence in non-op land at 1400hrs

Mammals
A single Harbour Porpoise only appeared to breach the once

Elsewhere
Everyone appears to be at work!

Poor nice sunny morning

Heysham Obs
The weather in the south Irish sea was again significant, I suspect with very frustrating seawatching this morning with potentially the best birds (3 possible skuas and two duck spp) remaining very distant and unidentified in the heat haze

North wall & office vis 0930-1000 - all flying NE unless stated
Black Guillemot - harbour mouth area
Purple Sandpiper - wooden jetty
Arctic Tern 1 + 4, the latter dropped from a height, faced into the wind before climbing again
Sandwich Tern - perhaps no more than 10 blogging
Guillemot - 11 floating in during the latter stages of the tide
Red-throated Diver - one out distantly
Gannet - 2 out distantly
Swallow - 32
Goldfinch - 49
Linnet - 16
Redpoll spp - 2
Sand Martin - 2
Meadow Pipit - 3

Red Nab/Ocean Edge/outfalls
Med Gull - 3CY in full summer plumage and probably the 2CY seen intermittently recently
Whimbrel - 8, including a flock of 4 in from the south
Gulls - up to 500 immature Common and Black-headed Gull - well worth regular perusal on the incoming tide

Moorhen
Unprecedentedly, one was wandering around on the grass by the office completely ignoring everyone. Escape from Martin Mere?

Moths
Common Carpet was a first for the year

Elsewhere
A new tetrad for Ring Ouzel in Bowland slightly lifts the gloom and doom with this species this year. Two Curlew Sandpiper Leighton Moss

Seawatching and vis morning on the north wall

Heysham Obs
An okayish morning, especially for the less experienced birders, but the lack of skua species was disappointing

Birds seen moving north 0700-1030
Kestrel - one watched 'in-off', then NE
Arctic Tern = 70 in, 7 out
Sandwich Tern - perhaps just 10 or so bloggng
Fulmar - perhaps just the two blogging
Razorbill - one in, two out
Guillemot - 5 out, one in
Whooper Swan - one in 1000ish - very late (Marton Mere bird?)
Whimbrel - 4 out
Gannet - 5 in, one out
Red-throated Diver - one out - landed on water
Goosander - male in (rare here)
Meadow Pipit - 25
Swallow - 90
Linnet - 23
Redpoll spp - 10
House Martin - 1
Swift - 2
Sand Martin - 14
Grey Wagtail - 1 (late)
Goldfinch - 17
Wheatear - 25 passed through the seawatch area, many of these "in-off" and north along the seawall. At least a further 27 in the recording area & the speed they were moving inland suggests many more as OE foreshore and the non-operational land were not checked until very late/not at all respectively
Wheatear (additional)
16 on Half Moon Bay foreshore 7am
13 on Ocean Edge foreshore 11am


In situ
Black Guillemot by the wooden jetty
Purple Sandpiper - probably just the one intermittently visible below wooden jetty
Little Gull - 2 adults on the outfall for a lengthy period - then at least one of them seemed to head off high
2 Grasshopper Warbler - Middleton Industrial Est

Elsewhere
Black Tern Leighton Moss