Depressing small moth

Heysham Obs
A depressaria in the form of the wildly exciting Agonopterix heracliana graced the moth trap this morning, the first life form therein for a week or so

Ocean Edge shingle beach, incoming tide
Med Gull - adult
Knot - 650
Dunlin - 230
Bar-tailed Godwit - 18
Grey Plover - 11

Middleton NR

Pochard (6 male, 2 female), female Goldeneye, Tufted Duck, 2 overflying Raven and these Teal (thanks Janet):



Pre-frontal check

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall
Twite - c17

Ocean Edge
Jack Snipe - 1
Wigeon - 117
Med Gull - adult

Simple sums

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall
Twite - exactly 50 on the seed
Med Gull - Czech-ringed adult patrolling the wall

Ocean Edge/Red Nab
Grey Plover - exactly 10
Wigeon - exactly 60
Mallard - pair
Teal - 3
Bar-tailed Godwit - 2
Black-tailed Godwit - 1
Med Gull - adult on Ocean Edge shingle beach

Heysham N Reserve
singing Chaffinch (first noted singing at Millhouses yesterday)

Chilly Grey Morning

Heysham
North Harbour Wall
Twite - 25 trapped (7 unringed, 18 retraps)
Med Gull - 1 Adult only seen


No Moths

More To Come??

Heysham

North Harbour Wall
Twite: up to 38 on seed. Only two unringed.


Mammals
Red Fox: 1 large animal on Reserve 12.00hr

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