More of the same

Heysham Obs
There appeared to be a movement through of Willow Warblers pre-dawn this morning and the mist nets were set too late at about 0545!!!   Notable small Whitethroat influx but just a trickle of other migrants.

Heysham office area
Grasshopper Warbler - presumed territorial male, not a series of passage birds, still singing on the tank farm
Tree Pipit - 3 (one ringed)
Willow Warbler - c10 migrants very first thing but only 4 ringed this morning
Whitethroat - influx with at least 10 new birds (3 ringed)
Lesser Whitethroat - 2 migrants moved quickly through
Goldfinch - c25 north
Linnet - c16 north
Meadow Pipit - 3 north
Blackcap - one singing male moved through (not local bird)
Lesser Redpoll - 2 north (1 ringed)

Sea/north wall
Skua spp. - presumed dark-morph Arctic flew quickly in at 0622hrs
Cormorant - flock of 8 high to the north
Wheatear - 3 heliport

Middleton NR
The long-staying Gadwall pair still present - now a "T" atlas-wise & the first such registration in SD45E

Willow Warbler smatter

Heysham Obs
Ringed Willow Warblers just about reached double-figures, but the support act was again paltry with just a single Blackcap & Whitethroat ringed migrant-wise.  Nothing notable overhead.

Grasshopper Warbler - 1 singing by reserve entrance early.
Tufted Duck - pair on Obs Tower pond.

North harbour wall coverage similarly low-key with very poor visibility

Moths
Included Least Black Arches and Oak Tree Pug - both new for the year and both recent additions to the Heysham fauna

Mammals
Roe Deer - 2 at north end of Non-Op land.

More drip-feed migration

Heysham Obs
An early start but limited ringing-wise to the office nets, which were not a good choice due to a niggling wind, followed by early sunrise.  The theme was birds bouncing out of slightly billowing nets, notably four Tree Pipit together!  Small by 1980's standards, but "reasonable" by recent standards, fall of Willow Warblers first thing

North harbour wall north-east-bound vis mig
Arctic Tern - 30
Sandwich Tern - 32
Swallow - 30
Meadow Pipit - 24
alba Wagtail - 11
Linnet - 12
Redpoll spp. - 10
Goldfinch - 1
Greenfrinch - 1
Whimbrel - 4
Greylag - 1
Turnstone - 217
Common Gull - 257 (others on south side)
Black-headed Gull - 119 (ditto)
Blackbird - now a pair on the mound!! (female definitely newly-arrived)

Heysham NR (north-east-bound vis very intermittently recorded, but different birds to NHW) 0545 onwards
Tree Pipit - 4+1+1, all early
Redpoll spp - 11
Linnet - 15
Goldfinch - 11
Greenfinch - unringed male caught
Willow Warbler - minimum of 25 in office/obs tower area, almost all in first hour (several bouncing out of mist nets)
alba Wagtail - 9
Meadow Pipit - 13
Reed Warbler - singing male in the far reedbed (first of year)
Sedge Warbler - one singing in reedbed next to alder copse

Moth
Streamer new for the year & not guaranteed here

Arctic Terns

Heysham Obs

Record shot taken into the sun on the dropping tide of Saturday's Little Stint (thanks Mike)
North Harbour Wall  0650-0930
Arctic Tern - 29  First of the year
Common Tern - 1
Sandwich Tern - 6 on the buoys

Vis
Linnet - 15
Meadow Pipit - 13
alba Wagtail - 6
Goldfinch - 5
Swallow - 5
Redpoll sp - 4
Greenfinch - 2

On the sea
Mute Swan - 2
Red-breasted Merganser - 8

Ocean Edge
Wheatear - 4
Common Gull - 565
Black-headed Gull - 75
Mediterranean Gull - 2 x second calendar year

Heysham Nature Reserve vis
Tree Pipit - 2 (caught and ringed)
Lesser Redpoll - 15
Goldfinch - 20
Linnet - 15
Meadow Pipit - 5
alba Wagtail - 7

Not many grounded migrants but 4 each of Blackcap and Willow Warbler ringed.

Pre-dawn night migrants, post-dawn vis trickle

Heysham Obs
Clear conditions this morning and revealing just how early you have to get up in order to record a meagre trickle of night migrants on the move at the first hint of any daylight

Tree Pipit

Heysham NR office area
Tree Pipit - 5 north (1 ringed)
Grasshopper Warbler - one ringed pre-dawn, another singing at the same time on the tank farm
Lesser Whitethroat - one migrant singing male moved through
Whitethroat - 2-3 males reserve & one Red Nab
Lesser Redpoll - just 3+1 north
Meadow Pipit - 5 north
Goldfinch - c15 north
Linnet - c10 north
Blackcap - male caught in darkness as the net was being set, female soon afterwards, then 3 others later
Willow Warbler - one caught as net was being set, the only evidence of a migrant!

North harbour wall
Whimbrel - one (first of year)
Purple Sandpiper - 1
Guillemot - 1 floated in at high tide.
Sandwich Tern - 10 blogging on the buoys
Red-throated Diver - 6 out
Gannet - 1 north
Eider - 70
Red-breasted Merganser - 7

Ocean Edge
Wheatear - 7
White Wagtail - 2
Ringed Plover - 86
Dunlin - 121
no obvious sign Little Stint but birds hard to see on rocks

Vis north harbour wall 0645-1030:
Meadow Pipit - 37
Tree Pipit - 1
Goldfinch - 6
Linnet - 16
Redpoll sp - 5
Swallow - 1
Chaffinch - 3
alba wagtail - 2

Middleton
Grasshopper Warblers still singing but not easy to see. 

And what about in flight?

Splendidly isolated Mealy, unseasonal Little Stint, Black Guillemot head a great day for 'one-offs'

Heysham Obs

2CY, probably female, Mealy Redpoll

'Going through the motions' this morning in (initially) perfect ringing conditions, but lousy overall weather synopsis produced one bird in the nets prior to 0800hrs, a Mealy Redpoll!  Then four others in the 'quality' category were caught:  a Tree Pipit, adult male Whitethroat first ringed as a 2CY in May 2007, an unringed male Blackcap and an adult female Blackcap first ringed at Woolston Eyes and previously caught at Heysham in early August 2010.  The 'pulse' of 8 Lesser Redpoll coincided with increasing wind and billowing nets, leading to an early finish.  Then an attempt to do 1/3 of the WeBs count produced a small winter-plumaged wader, eventually identified as Little Stint, then a (the?) Black Guillemot made an appearance, then a flava Wagtail flew over.  A Dotted Border was a rather unexpected late individual.

Overhead a pulse of Meadow Pipits, small finch species and two Tree Pipits (one ringed) prior to the cloud from the weak front

Ocean Edge foreshore
Wheatear - 4 (one male of Faroese/Icelandic/Greenlandish proportions)
Little Stint - mainly winter plumage bird with migrant Dunlin & Ringed Plover took a little bit of precautionary sorting out with a 60x!  Record shots taken of sleeping bird

Record shot into the sun (thanks Pete)

Heysham office area
No hint of any phyllosc migration
Blackcap - unringed male caught, see above re-female
Whitethroat - the old ringed male detailed above was the only sighting
Lesser Whitethroat - singing male, almost certainly not a new arrival
Grasshopper Warbler - singing male on tank farm - time to revise yesterday's comment?
Meadow Pipit - 26 north
Goldfinch - c25 north
Linnet - c15 north
Lesser Redpoll - 3+5+1 north
alba Wagtail - 6 north
Tree Pipit - 2 north
Common (Mealy) Redpoll - 2CY ringed at 0720, defnitely migrating on its own
flava Wagtail - one heard, seemingly flying NW at 1115ish (& Mike Baron)

North harbour wall 0930-1100hrs (thanks Mike Baron) (some stuff from earlier still to be entered)
Black Guillemot - one in the harbour mouth mid-morning, then flushed offshore by ferry.  Adult summer & surely the "returning" bird, hopefully on more than last year's day-trip
Guillemot 1

Razorbill 1
Red-throated Diver 2+2
Gannet 4+5
Common Scoter 14+10
Eider 1+3+2
Red-breasted Merganser 3
Sandwich Tern 1+1
Turnstone on wooden jetty 215+
1 Wheatear on mound plus 4 Linnets, Mipit and 2 Pied Wags

Moths
Dotted Border was unexpectedly late, highest count was 7 Early Thorn, otherwise the usual quartet of orthosias

Migrant drip-feed

Heysham Obs
What may have been a Great Northern Diver seen very distantly floating in/diving (0915hrs).  No further sign.  Otherwise a bit slow in the rather uniform medium-high cloud and still conditions.  Based purely on Heysham evidence, it was amazing to see the number of latish Meadow Pipits and other vis mig over nearby Rossall (580+) and Walney in what appeared to be clearer conditions over the mouth of the Bay

Heysham Nature reserve office area
Willow Warbler - arrived a bit late (0610!!) and 5-10 were in the process of moving through with 6 subsequently caught, one ringed as a juvenile (female) at Middleton on 12/7/10 and one from Heysham NR last summer.  Another unringed female was caught (wing length)
Redstart - male by office
Redpoll - 6 north (2 ringed)
alba Wagtail - 10 north
Linnet - 16 north
Goldfinch - 8 north
Meadow Pipit - one north
Lesser Whitethroat - singing male tank farm
Grasshopper Warbler - singing male briefly on tank farm first thing - appeared to be moving north through the area with the final burst of song quite close.  Therefore doubtfully yesterdays bird still in situ

North harbour wall
Blackbird - singing male on the mound - an iconic atlas dot for SD36!!!
Greenshank - on flew 'in' - scarce here
Sandwich Tern - c20 blogging, 3 later on Red Nab
Swallow - c35 north
Diver spp - one in winter/2CY plumage, looked 'large and straight-billed', but distant (per Pete C)

Moths
A Golden-rod Pug appears to be the earliest record in at least VC60 and perhaps Lancs - continuing the main theme of this spring!

Overnight arrivals, then the blocking cloud

Heysham Obs

Blackcap taken today (thanks Janet)

"Nice" to be able to predict what was going to happen today = precisely nothing landfalling/moving through after first light as a fairly localised splodge of cloud spilled in from the north-west.  Pre-dawn saw Lesser Whitethroat and Grasshopper Warbler (2) singing within audible range of the office and all the migrant captures were pre-dawn arrivals during the night (two Blackcaps (one 15.5 grams), a Lesser Whitethroat, a Wren and a Chiffchaff)

Office area to 0845hrs
Blackcap - 2 males ringed
Chiffchaff - one new bird ringed
Lesser Whitethroat - male singing well before dawn was immediately caught and ringed
Grasshopper Warbler - two different birds singing in the tank farm
alba Wagtail - 6 north, the only 'vis'

Middleton NR
Grasshopper Warbler - three singing males - two in the western marsh, one adjoining the golf course just to the north of the western marsh, possibly five later (or some shifting around)
Whitethroat - two singing males, one probably a mobile new arrival
Sedge warbler - two singing males central marsh
Blackcap - singing male edge of golf course
Greylag - 5 on the model boat pond (no white ones!)

Inshore
Sandwich Tern - c20 blogging off the north harbour wall

Optimistic opportunist

Heysham Obs
Ocean Edge
Little Ringed Plover - male holding territory (of sorts) in the slightly muddy/stony bit half way along the western grassy area

North harbour wall and area
Common Sandpiper - first of year along the seawall
Purple Sandpiper - probably two on wooden jetty
Turnstone - 224
nothing on the sea 0915-0930

Heysham Nature Reserve
Lesser Whitethroat - mobile male - first of the year

Auk passage and first Poms

Heysham Obs
North Harbour Wall
0725-0905
Got there a bit late so only had the tail-end of the early morning passage. All birds "in" unless stated:
Auk sp 54  (cf Rossall 500) - all very distant, probably Razorbill but too distant to tell.
Gannet 36
Common Scoter 1
Sandwich Tern 2
Arctic Skua 1 dark morph in at 0755
Pomarine Skua 3 adults together (one definite pale morph, the other two difficult to see underparts) into mouth of Bay then out at 0830
Swallow 4
Red-breasted Merganser 3 in, 2 out.

Wooden jetty
Turnstone 110

Jean Roberts