Go away, see you next spring

Heysham Obs
Red Nab/Ocean Edge incoming tide
Med Gull - 3 adults:  Mobile pair with the noticeably smaller female following the male, which immediately flew as soon as she approached and eventually headed off high to the south into the drizzle with the female trailing some distance behind.  Another adult losing its summer plumage on the head roosted on Red Nab
Common Sandpiper - one heard
Mallard - two female/imms Red Nab (unusual!)

Moths
A very poor catch included a Plain Golden Y (surprisingly rare here!) and one of the occasional visits from the fairly common saltmarsh 'grass moth' Pediasia aridella

Mysterious food source

Heysham Obs
Ocean Edge/Red Nab
Med Gull - 2 adults with c300 Black-headed Gulls dip-feeding on a smooth area of shallow water off Ocean Edge - possibly a concentrated emission from one of the outfalls
Greenshank - adult in Ocean Edge saltmarsh creek - the only wader!
Whimbrel - one Red Nab
Swift - 5 south in 15 minutes

Moths
Rather a lot of worn Uncertain & Rustic to sort out & nothing obviously new for the year, although Herald is quite unusual in July

Good ratio of Meds

Heysham Obs
Red Nab/Ocean Edge
Med Gull - first juvenile of the "autumn" along with an adult and an adult/3CY (wing-tips not visible) amongst ONLY 18 gulls!
Whimbrel - one

Moths
White Satin new for the year continuing the theme of irregularly recorded species of presumed coastal origin in the south-westerly winds (commonest moth in the Walney Obs trap at the moment)

More Manx

Heysham Obs
Ocean Edge 0900-0930
A 20 minute scan for Storm Petrel around the 'red buoy area' & off the end of the outfalls revealed 5 or 6 distant Manx Shearwater flying "in and across", perhaps not visible from the north wall

Med Gull - adult on the receding tideline; not ringed below the tarsus, but couldnt rule out Czech bird

Moths
A White-line Dart was the first (and perhaps the last - not common here) of the year

Baby Wrens

Heysham Obs
The first belated baby Wrens of the year were ringed by the office along with single Lesser Whitethroat and Whitethroat juveniles

Whimbrel - one north wall (thanks Lou)

Moths were numerous but without any highlights; Marbled Beauty appeared to be new for the year and there were the 'routine' four Double Darts

Target seawatching and a blast from the past

Todays Archer's Dart - thanks John

Heysham Obs
Seawatch 0815-0844
Manx Shearwater - two distantly out at 0844 - the target met

Red Nab area dropping tide
Arctic Tern - one (ad)
Med Gull - one Ad

Moths
The fourth Archers Dart for the hut trap (two 1980s, one 1997) was presumably a result of a strong wind traversing the bay from known regular haunts in the Walney area?

First Manx Shearwater of the year

Heysham Obs
A 1.5 hour seawatch by Tom Walkington just before midday saw:
Manx Shearwater - 1
Arctic Tern - 1

Later:
Arctic tern - two Red Nab
Common Tern - one Red Nab
Med Gull - adult Stage 2 outfall, two adults Red Nab

The colourful and the dowdy

Heysham Obs
As is also the case on the Walney Obs site (see links), daily postings are currently thriving on a diet of rather good moth catches.  Todays stars were a Lime Hawk-moth (3rd record), two Elephant Hawk-moth (surprisingly the first in the hut trap since 2006), Barred Yellow (again perhaps surprisingly scarce in the hut trap)..............and Dingy Shears (a local dull brown moth) & five Double Dart (a seriously declining dull brown moth where this appears to be the best remaining site in northern Britain).  A map showing Double Dart decline has been published in the latest Butterfly Conservation moth newsletter.

CES disaster but an anticipated new moth species

Heysham Obs
Middleton IE CES
A Reed Warbler bearing a foreign-type ring inscription, almost certainly French, escaped before it had been read due to fiddling about with new glasses which allowed me to see about 6 inches in front of my eyes (i.e. read ring numbers) but not the process of getting the bird out of the bag!!!  Hopefully it will be a local breeding bird, not a very early dispersing adult and will be caught again.  The remainder of the catch was lower than it should have been due to a combination of sun and wind (I was hoping for cloud cover for the whole three hours) for the last 1.5 of the 3 hour session (7 Sedge warbler, one Reed Warbler plus the above).  Loads of Sedge Warblers around but not very mobile until it became too windy/sunny to net efficiently & most of them seemed to be in the net-free western marsh

Green Sandpiper - the inviting muddy edge of the central marsh attracted one in until accidentally flushed at some unearthly hour (0550ish!) whence it flew off NE
Med Gull - adult flew over towards the coast at about 0830hrs

No time/chance to check the outfalls gulls

Moths

A fairly decent catch, as the rain did not also involve a wind blowing into the window as happened during the great thunderstorm night earlier in the week.  The highlight being the first Blackneck for this site.

Time to check gulls on a daily basis!

Heysham Obs
Ocean Edge high tide
Not the best time but still three full s.p.adult Med Gulls on view

Middleton IE
A mist net ride trimming session saw singing male Reed Warblers in the central and western marsh reedbeds and one singing Grasshopper Warbler in the western marsh.  Best was the first Common Sandpiper of the autumn on the central marsh pond

Elsewhere
The Yellow (male = Channel) Wagtail family party seems to have dispersed from the Wenning Foot area with no sign this evening