Winter Greenshank surprise

Heysham Obs
Ocean Edge area (low tide)
Greenshank - 1
Teal - 13
2 Bar-tailed Godwit, 1 Snipe, 41 Linnet/Twite

Outfalls
Kingfisher - 1

Middleton IE/NR
Teal - 3
Pink-footed Goose - 89 north
Coot - 7
Mute Swan - 2

Heysham office feeders
Brambling - one male

North harbour wall
Twite - 27 (4 unringed)
Linnet - 1

Piledriving Twite

Heysham Obs
The 'sun in face' views of the Twite on the nyger seed revealed just how vicious the feeding activity is with sand and seed visibly scattered at least 30cm around each bird.  'You've flicked sand in my face' might therefore have been the instigator of several squabbles amongst todays hordes

Twite - 105-110, with 85-90 of these flying off behind the sandworks.  Ring colours could not be discerned, given the light conditions, but there were at least 10 unringed birds
Med Gull - Czech-ringed adult on the railings

Twite tonnage

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall
Twite - 103 - the highest count this winter.  At least 16 unringed, at least 10 red/white from winter 2009/10, one Machrihanish-ringed bird but only 7(/21) could be found of those ringed yesterday.  Very unusual to see so many at low tide as a proportion often utilise Ocean Edge saltmarsh - maybe there is no food left there?
Mistle Thrush - one in SD36V, then by the Twite feeder on the 46A side

Middleton NR
Pochard - 7 (one female) on the model boat pond
Teal - pair model boat pond
Wren - at least 3 in the wetland areas
Pink-footed Goose - skeins of 61 & 47 high to the NW, 450 or so blogging to the east over the bypass fields

Ringing recoveries
Another wadge received by NLRG yesterday & these are the most interesting involving Heysham, although the Twite locality is the equivalent of a Sedge Warbler at Icklesham!   Remember the Lesser Redpoll passage was very early this last spring and therefore the date is not "too early" for rapid transit passage:

Lesser Redpoll

X438172   4     13.04.10    Heysham Obs
Caught by Ringer  23.11.10 Queen Mary Reservoir (Surrey) 334 km

Twite
V240409  4M  08.03.10 Heysham north harbour wall
Caught by Ringer 20.07.10 Sanda Island (Argyll & Bute) 220 km


Moth
The first of the 'new 2011' moths, as opposed to last year's 'leftovers'/hibernators, in the form of a single Dotted Border

Red-throated Dot and more auklessness

Heysham Obs
A 20 minute perusal of the incoming tide early afternoon revealed a Red-throated Diver absolutely miles out, fortunately in very good light/visibility. Absolutely nothing else!

North harbour wall
Twite - a nice catch this morning of 37 birds which included a really surprising 21 unringed!  However, the unringed birds tend to be the first down on the food when a net is set but we had no idea there were so many.  Perhaps the same number were present watching the operation but a second catch was abandoned due to increasingly blustery rather cold conditions.  Most of the retraps were from autumn 2010 (2 from March 2010), perhaps surprising none of the several red/white-ringed birds from 2009/10 were in the catch.   This suggest the same 76 +/- 1-2 birds seen the other day.
Red-throated Diver - one far offshore early pm

Twite in the Rain

Heysham Obs
North  Harbour Wall early morning
Twite - 50 including 8 unringed.  Seen in unexpectedly heavy rain.
Linnet - 3 (1 ringed bird).

ajd

...............and a few more this afternoon (68+, assuming all Twite)

thanks Janet

Ocean Edge shingle beach high tide

Really nice selection of close waders including:

Ringed Plover (21), Grey Plover (10), Bar-tailed Godwit (2), Black-tailed Godwit (1) plus a load of Dunlin, Knot and Redshank........and two Skylark

Good numbers of twite

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall
Twite - a good count of 76 with at least 16 unringed, possibly many more, but flew off to the back of the sandworks before I could go through them all
Med Gull - one adult late pm

Heysham nature reserve
Brambling - at least three, possibly all five finches which flew off high to the south whilst 'topping up' were this species & no other calls heard

Ocean Edge south shore
Tide not far enough in for Jack Snipe
Ringed Plover - 22
Grey Plover - 7
Teal - male

Brilliant Jack Snipe!

Heysham Obs
Whilst scoping some Linnets on the high tide shingle beach at Ocean Edge, a bouncing Jack Snipe was noted walking slowly up the beach towards the only sizeable rock.  As it neared this rock, a second sleeping bird was seen to be already there!

Ocean edge foreshore
Jack Snipe - two as above
Linnet - 13
Grey Plover - 3
Skylark - 3 together on shingle beach

North harbour wall/wooden jetty
Purple Sandpiper - at least one, possibly two but very mobile
Med Gull - the usual two adults (one Czech-ringed) by the anglers
Twite - c40

Elsewhere
No sign of the Shorelark but has anyone checked the shingle beach at Crag Bank on the other side of the Keer?  Yellowhammer Hutton Roof Crag

Innumerate foggy geese

Heysham Obs
Skylark - at least two SE over reserve but couldnt see them
Pink-footed Goose - either hundreds, thousands or tens over the reserve but couldnt see whether the same ones were going round in circles, or work out the direction!
Twite - 46 early morning, 45 later
Brambling - two office feeders early morning but flew off
Med Gull - two adults (including Czech bird) hanging around the anglers
Rock Pipit - one flew over the heliport towards Heysham Head c1230hrs

Cannon-netting at the heliport
This was an extremely well-organised operation by Richard du Feu and included many local ringers, including the Fylde Ringing Group.

207 Oystercatchers cannon-netted on the heliport late morning.  The weights generally appear to be very good and the number that had not completed their primary moult was very low. This ties in with the low numbers of birds found dead in the bay this winter which are normally birds that have failed to complete their moult (c/p 15 in just 4.5km of shoreline checked following a later spell of severe weather in early 2010).  The lack of a national increase in wader ringing recoveries (BTO pers comm) and a detailed intertidal study off Ocean Edge just prior to Christmas suggested that the waders were able to cope with frozen inner shore (or indeed snow-covered on the (neap tide) morning of 18th Dec).  There was some obvious displacement to (at the very least) nearby intertidal areas which were further from the shore and subject to longer 'defrosting' by tidal incursion  (similar 'evacuation' also noted by the observers in the Glasson area of the Lune estuary), but neither large-scale mortality, nor observation of excessively tame, 'arthritic' waders.  The obvious logic is that early winter severe weather, when birds are theoretically 'stronger and fitter', does not impact as greatly as post-New year spells.

Back to the Oystercatchers:
Out of ten birds already bearing rings, one was a Grampian bird. Ringed as an adult on 27/3/10 at an inland spring roost near Tarland and, as the date suggests, this is inconclusive as to whether it was a prospective local breeder or a migrant heading further north (presumably not an overshoot from a more southerly breeding site!).  Thanks to Richard & Raymond Duncan for this info.

Other retraps were ringed at Heysham as follows
2x 01/02/2006

4x 01/02/2010
3x 12/12/2008

The 207 birds were made up of:  181 were full adults, 9 hatched in 2009, 17 hatched in 2010

Short ringing session by the office (whilst finishing off the abovementioned intertidal report!) produced very little other than two unringed Robins and a very active welcome retrap Wren

Other sightings.
Pinkfoot were constantly calling from just above the mist between 9am & 1pm above Middleton Nature Reserve and Harbour South Wall area. The impression was that this was largely the same flocks trying to find a suitable place to land. Caught a few glimpses through the gloom, the largest flock seen was c250. There were c150 on the mud off Ocean Edge calling to the overhead birds.
Also on Ocean edge:
14 teal (come here when ponds are frozen)
2 bar tailed godwit
2 black tailed godwit
Stoat – This appeared to be moving young to safe ground (rocks on foreshore) ahead of the rising tide. But it seems too early in the year, it could have being moving an earlier kill (rat?).
Middleton Nature Reserve (only small pockets of open water and limited visibility due to fog)
2 mute
5 coot
2 moorhen
4 mallard
18 redwing
(MD)

The rites of spring

Heysham Obs
This was going on at Middleton NR today!  Thanks Janet

North harbour wall area
Twite - c30 at dawn, 42 later
Med Gull - two adults
Purple Sandpiper - just one during lengthy vigil (thanks Sean)
Black-tailed Godwit - one off the north wall - very unusual north of the wooden jetty

Apologies for another blank day

The only ornithological titbit from Heysham today was the fact that the calm sea kept the Oystercatcher roost on the seawall instead of the heliport grass!