Routine stuff

Heysham Obs
Brambling - one at office feeder
Raven - one over office
Med Gull - 2 adults harbour
Twite - c50 on seed
Cormorant - another high winter count of 57 on wooden jetty
Woodcock - single below Obs Tower (45E) and one NE corner (46A)

Fairly birdless off the path nature ramble

........around Heysham Nature reserve produced two Woodcock, but an absolute dearth of small birds with e.g. no Wren (including circumnavigating the whole reedbed area=prime winter habitat), Robin or Dunnock

Heysham Nature reserve circuit away from the feeders, including all round the wetland area 
Woodcock - 2
Blackbird - 3
Song Thrush - 1
Moorhen - 1
That seriously was it!!

North harbour wall
Twite - 47
Med Gull - ad in the harbour, another ad roosting on the old Fisher's roof - both at high tide
Meadow Pipit - one sandworks
Pied Wagtail - 1

Moth
One Winter Moth in the trap

Red-jacketed mutt produces the goods

Heysham Obs
.....by flushing a Jack Snipe from Ocean Edge saltmarsh........"the only thing they are any good for" was the opinion of a colleague this morning, who was trying to do a wader high tide survey on a dog-infested Barrovian beach!

The other thing this morning was a very quirky year list order with Med Gull before ANY large gulls (I've been inland until today) and the wader sequence from New Year's day being:  Lapwing: Woodcock: Snipe (SD66), then Turnstone at exactly the same time as Purple Sandpiper (& before anything else like Curlew/Oystercatcher!).  This was a product of concentrating on the road/avoiding anglers on the way to the Twite feeder, then driving & scanning the wooden jetty

Ocean Edge area
Jack Snipe - one as above
Black-tailed Godwit - 8 Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Mallard - 4 Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Wigeon - 88
Grey Plover - 8 Red Nab
Bar-tailed Godwit - 6 Red Nab
Linnet - 2(+?) saltmarsh
Twite - 16+ saltmarsh

Harbour area
Twite - 20 (4 unringed, 6 with red/white, rest from last autumn)
Med Gull - adult following ferry
Purple Sandpiper - 1 on wooden jetty
Red-breasted Merganser - female harbour mouth

Moths
The first moths of the year comprised a Mottled Umber and a Winter Moth

Elsewhere
Just to the north of the Obs area, a large rowan tree in Westfield Grove, off Albany Road, Morecambe west end held 11 Waxwing (following earlier sightings of up to 4 this week) - plenty of berries left

Sorry

For the first time, a blank day just after New Year - without having time to trawl all the personal blogs, it seems all the year listers came yesterday, as we were hoping for further reports of the usual targets.  We've either been getting the our usual 10km Square January surveys out of the way [plus in the process adding valuable Atlas Roving Records] or getting work on high moorland tops out of the way after rumblings of a minor repeat of December's weather coming up!

Back to the usual input tomorrow.  Apologies for a wasted journey to the site 

Thanks to New Years day listers

Heysham Obs
Happy new year to all

Tom Walkington kindly relayed the following sightings:
Purple Sandpiper - single showing well and two reported by at least one observer
Twite - at least 30
Med Gull - 2 adults
Red-throated Diver - one offshore

Deadlines!!

Heysham Obs
Brambling - one flew over whilst walking from the car to the HNR office

Mossgate park in NE of recording area (thanks Helen)
A good day at the bird feeders in our garden today with 4 siskins visiting, a male bullfinch and up to 6 bramblings.


Moths
Single Mottled Umber and Winter Moth in the trap

More moths

male Winter Moth (thanks Janet)

Heysham Obs
Having just emptied a trap at Millhouses with an amazing 103 moths therein (51 Mottled Umber, 33 Winter Moth, 2 Scarce Umber, 15 December Moth, 1 Satellite, 1 Chestnut), it was not unexpected to find 3 Winter Moth, another Parsnip Moth and one Mottled Umber in the Heysham trap!

North & south harbour walls (thanks Sean)
Purple Sandpiper - at the harbour mouth below the north harbour wall
Med Gull - 2 adults
Red-breasted Merganser - 2 in the harbour
Cormorant - 49 on jetty
Starling - c10,000 roosting on wooden jetty in the calm weather

Insects on the prowl

Heysham Obs
A shortish visit to the office included 1.5 hours with the feeder mist nets and a walk round the top end of the reserve.  It was positively spring-like, full of singing Great Tits and winter-gnat-type-things.  No Bramblings seen/heard today

Heysham NR 1045-1330
Reed Bunting - one briefly at the feeder
Pink-footed Goose - c180 south at 1205hrs
Skylark - one south at 1110hrs
Song Thrush - at least 4 round the office
Goldcrest - one below the obs tower

Moth trap
Two Winter Moth and a Parsnip Moth was an instant response to a cloudy above-zero night (12 moths in the Millhouses trap)

Grey day with nasty black ice

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall
Red-breasted Merganser - four
Great-crested Grebe- 1
Song Thrush - 1
Twite - 30+

Reserve
Brambling - at least 2 by the feeder late afternoon

Ice had virtually gone by late afternoon but still needed to take care off the main vehicle track down the entrance hill

A silent nature reserve

Heysham Obs
Alan & John - anything to add, please?

A walk round Heysham nature reserve early afternoon in an increasing southerly & rapid melt brought just 4-5 Blackbird, a Redwing and a Chaffinch, despite a bit of strategic pishing to elicit response from e.g. Wrens

The exception was the feeder by the office where there were at least three Brambling late afternoon and, perhaps ominously, a male Pheasant was strutting around.  In the past, when they were common on the reserve, they completely costed-out any ground feeding

North harbour wall
Twite - increased to 68 and included two Machrihanish-ringed birds (see sidebar), 8 unringed birds.
Linnet - 1 at least with Twite.
Meadow Pipit - wandering about by sand plant.