The delights of the north harbour wall and an unseasonal pug

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall
Black Redstart - still on the banks of the mound
Meadow Pipit - 12+ (9 ringed)
Rock Pipit - 1-2 (one ringed)
Twite - just 14 seen but 7/10 caught were new unringed birds
Pink-footed Goose - c400 north (all presumed to be this spp)
Med Gull - adult

Red Nab/Ocean Edge
Intensive scrutiny, once again, of the beaches and coastal perches revealed a much reduced number of Twite at high tide (c28) [note Sunderland numbers yesterday late pm]
Dark-bellied Brent Goose - adult still Red Nab at high tide
Wigeon - 76

Reserve
Pheasant - female seen along entrance road ('new in'!!)

Moth
A  Wormwood Pug was on the wall in the kitchen - has this emerged from a pupa near a heater?

1st W (e.g. median covert pattern/moult contrast in gcs) Rock Pipit of indeterminate form, but possibly a dispersing petrosus.  Many of the  saltmarsh-dwelling 'likely' littoralis have e.g. more prominent supercilia, less smudged underpart streaking and whiter outer tail feather.  Thanks Alan

Intertidal day

Heysham Obs
A quick trawl round the mound early morning failed to locate the Black Redstart but it "flew in" about 30 minutes later for another observer!  The Dark-bellied Brent appeared around Red Nab on the incoming tide.  "Huge" numbers of waders on the mudflats (accurate counts do exist!) were again flushed en masse by the "lady in red" (with a blue rucsac and medium-sized brown and black dogs) doing a long incoming tide tideline walk   This behaviour prevented up to 28,000 waders feeding where they wanted to for about 45 minutes.  Mr Woodburn would have enjoyed this.

Heysham NR - vis 0715-0745, pre-dusk walk round reserve
Chaffinch - 38 SW, all fairly high, therefore presumed movement, not ex-roost (or both!)
Siskin - heard x 1 early morning
Greenfinch - 2 SW
Goldfinch - 5 SW
'Crest spp - 6 heard, including 4 in the NE corner, no reason to suggest they were not all Goldcrest
Blackbird - as John discovered three mornings ago, they have all gone.  No more than 5 seen on late afternoon reserve circuit
Treecreeper - one NE corner

North harbour wall
Black Redstart - 1st W still north wall early-mid morning
Meadow Pipit - increase to 15-17
Rock Pipit - one
Med Gull - adult
Dunnock - one
Twite - 9

Ocean Edge/outfalls area
Twite - 125
Linnet - 20
Rock Pipit - 1
Dark-bellied Brent - adult Red Nab

 Thanks Pete

Pleasant day with Barnacle Goose flock the local highlight

Heysham Obs
North wall area
Black Redstart - 1st W showing very well until at least 1215hrs frequenting the sandworks compound at the end of the north harbour wall
Med Gull - two adults, one Czech-ringed
Rock Pipit - one
Meadow Pipit - c10
Red-throated Diver - one flying out of the bay very distantly
Dark-bellied Brent Goose - the adult flew past from the Heysham Head direction late morning
Twite - 28 caught; 10 new, one 2010 Machrihanish-ringed bird, 17 Heysham retraps

Ocean Edge/outfalls/IOM ferry
Med Gull - additional adult behind the ferry, then flew out
Little Gull - adult behind the ferry but then sat on the sea 'miles out'!
Twinnet - c150, mainly Twite
Meadow Pipit - c6
Snipe - 1
Dark-bellied Brent Goose - adult on Red Nab during the high tide period

Misc
Barnacle Goose - Nine over Heysham Head at lunchtime
Insects
Red Admiral - one Ocean Edge, plus at least two NH Wall area.
Wasp spp - worker social wasp Ocean Edge

Game on for all you local coastal/bush searchers!

Todays north wall 1st winter Black Redstart before and after a bath.  Thanks Rosie and Mario

Heysham Obs
Impressive day with all sorts of odds and ends, ironically on the first day for some while without any evidence of early morning thrush arrival.  Re-the heading, note that two Snow Bunting are at the tip of Sunderland Point today

Highlights
Firecrest - (probably but not certainly a male (very rusty shoulders but crown not seen properly)) Heysham NR car park with tits 0730ish, then headed for the top path trees with the tits.  Not intensively searched for subsequently due to other things to do
Black Redstart - north harbour wall on the old control room roof (only building there) in the former sandworks compound  0945ish & in the same general area to lunchtime at least but then seemed to be flushed by walkers and may have flown over to the other side of the harbour
Dark-bellied Brent Goose - Adult appeared around Red Nab just after high tide with returning Wigeon & was still there at 1320hrs

Vis mig by the office 0730-0900, rather intermittent
Jackdaw - flock of 21 south
Chaffinch - at least 45 SW, possibly double this
Brambling - 5+2 SW early on
Siskin - 2 SE
Skylark - heard once
Greenfinch - conspicuous by its absence with just 6 SW and no grounded birds
Goldfinch - c10 SW, two unringed birds caught
alba Wagtail - 2 SE

Grounded/off-passage birds
Goldcrest - one unringed bird and at least one ringed bird
Blackbird - c25, mainly tank farm
Song Thrush - 2 tank farm
Woodcock - one flushed from 'usual spot'
Twite - 105 Ocean Edge foreshore
Linnet - 15 Ocean Edge foreshore
Reed Bunting - 2 OE
Snipe - one OE
Meadow Pipit - 10 north wall mound/sandworks
Treecreeper - one retrap

Miscellany
Pink-footed Goose - c54 & c35 south
Med Gull - ad north wall

Insects
One Red Admiral flew south past the office.  The element of east in the wind is no good for the moth trap, despite high night temperatures

Short on quality sightings, high on biomass

Heysham Obs
Once again, despite the best efforts of a 'lady in red' with a dobermann and another large brown dog creating a 360 degree, 400m avian exclusion zone on the dropping tide, today's intertidal count produced loads of birds, not quite as many as on the neap tides due to the displacement of high-tide roosting birds towards Middleton saltmarsh/Sunderland.  Given the time in the field/in the car watching things in the field, the fare was rather disappointing with the only real interest being:

Shoveler - pair Red Nab, the colourful half snapped by Janet
Med Gull - adult harbour area
Twite - maximum count of 63 on Ocean Edge at high tide with a few small flocks subsequently going backwards and forwards between there and the north wall.  2011 Machrihanish bird(s)  seen at both Ocean Edge and the north wall
Linnet - 11 Ocean Edge
Meadow Pipit - 2-3 on north wall mound
Rock Pipit - one Ocean Edge
Dunnock - one in the mound gorse on north wall

Rotting wood and rusty railings have their uses.  We used to birdwatch from the end of this in the 90's!  Thanks Janet

   Anonymous biomass

No insects seen today

11 hour presence and not a scrap of birding!

Heysham Obs
Today was deadline day and the only break was to top-up the feeders:

Goldcrest - 2 next to office

Fortunately Janet was out and about and photographed the above 1CY Med Gull which was also seen by a birder en route to Ireland..............along with an adult, as usual, following the boat and also a single Rock Pipit

Insects
Angle Shades in the moth trap and 2 Red Admirals whilst topping up the feeder alongh with a single worker social wasp

Late flurry of migrant Meadow Pipit

Heysham Obs
Just the mound/north wall covered this morning, then the Potts Corner-Heysham stretch was (rather disappointing apart from Ringed Plover) covered late afternoon:

Meadow Pipit - 11, including a group of 5 in-off joining the ones already there
Rock Pipit - one
Med Gull - Czech-ringed ad
Song Thrush - one mound
Twite - 56 early morning.  35 of these examined and there were 13 unringed plus one with autumn 2011 Machrihanish Seabird Observatory combination and one with autumn 2010 Machrihanish combination.  No chance to sort through the Heysham-ringed birds as the flock was flushed by a noisy Mistle Thrush.  Later a short ringing session confirmed the influx of new birds with a catch of 13 containing 9 unringed and a single 'new' Machrihanish-ringed bird.  By this time there were 24 Twite also on Ocean Edge, perhaps some of the morning flock of 56.

Ringed Plover - c60 close inshore along the southern edge of the recording area was a surprise and a perhaps further indication that we are missing birds on the WeBS counts between Potts Corner and Ocean Edge when the tide height is less than a full 'spring' - there is plenty of beach on which Ringed Plover can be very hard to locate - previous estimates for this stretch during the winter months have never exceeded 30.  The other alternative is that the elusive Sunderland Point birds joined forces with the Potts Corner-Ocean Edge birds today

Butterflies
Red Admiral - two 'in-off' during the twite-ringing session on the north harbour wall at lunchtime

Still some thrush movement

Heysham Obs
Earlyish arrival was greeted by c40 Redwing in and around the office and more unusually, 5 Fieldfare lifted from the bushes by the car park and headed inland.  Grounded Fieldfare are surprisngly scarce here

Heysham NR
See above re-early morning thrushes

Pheasant - male seen along entrance road today and yesterday (remnant of a release of "40" on the golf course, most of which were welcomed by the foxes).  Reeve's Pheasant seen along the PS entrance road 'last week'

An afternoon circuit was fairly unproductive with just 25 Blackbird, 3 Song Thrush, 1+ Water Rail and a Treecreeper of note

No time to do any morning vis mig but there just seemed to be the odd Chaffinch heading over

"Gate 38"/south wall/outfalls/Ocean Edge
Rock Pipit - one by wooden jetty, one Red Nab
Kingfisher - one Red Nab
Med Gull - adult Red Nab
Twite - 21 or so Ocean Edge (different from north wall birds)

North harbour wall
At least one Dunnock still in residence in the mound area
Song Thrush - one migrant
Twite - 36, including one ringed in autumn 2008
No sign Guillemot

Mammals
5 Roe Deer reported by a dog walker along the dog track woodland strip - two have been regular in the NE corner of the reserve recently

A quiet day

Nothing out of the ordinary today. 

North Harbour Wall
No Guillemots
33 Twite whizzing about between the gasholder, the seed area, the sandplant and the mound.  Only 3 appeared to be unringed.  Managed to note the colour combinations of 15 of them:
2 were ringed 3 yrs ago,
3 were ringed 2 yrs ago,
1 was ringed 1.5yrs ago,
3 were ringed 1 yr ago,
2 were ringed at the start of this year
4 had been ringed since October this year
What is interesting is that only 23% of the birds noted had been ringed between Jan-March of any particular year and 77% were birds ringed in the October-December periods. 
Also in the area:
1 Linnet, 1 Robin, 2 Pied Wagtail, 1 Dunnock, 2 Mistle Thrush, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Meadow Pipit, 1 Rock Pipit.
1 adult Mediterranean Gull

Heysham Nature Reserve
Water Rail - 1 very noisy individual somewhere behind the dipping pond
Blackbird - 25
Song Thrush - 3
Robin - 9
Goldcrest - 2
Treecreeper - 1
plus Great Tit 4, Blue Tit 2, Greenfinch 1, Goldfinch 4, Long-tailed Tit 16 (in 3 flocks), Wren 8, Dunnock 2, Moorhen 2, Bullfinch 1, Chaffinch 1, Great-spotted Woodpecker 1

Ocean Edge saltmarsh
A further 25 or so Twite.  These alternate between snacking on the saltmarsh plants and going for a quick drink in a puddle on the grass above the marsh.

Early thrush flurry and SEO

Heysham Obs
Back into early-morning mode for perhaps the last time this autumn.  It was certainly the coldest morning of the year and the crystal dawn clarity did not seem to offer much.  Then Fieldfares were heard, then Redwings and the first half hour of 'proper' daylight was quite entertaining, culminating in a Short-eared Owl.  Downhill thereafter.

Vis mig dawn to 0845
Fieldfare - 98
Redwing - 51
Song Thrush - 3
Short-eared Owl - one low inland, mobbed by crows at 0745hrs
Brambling - at least one (heard)
Chaffinch - 39
Goldfinch - 17
Starling - on flock of 72 SW
Greenfinch - 24

Reserve circuit 0845-0915
Woodcock - one flushed from eastern woodland
Water Rail - 2+
Reed Bunting - one in marsh
Siskin - one grounded
Goldcrest - 5
Redwing - 27 still grounded - flew inland.  c200 grounded on Middleton
Blackbird - c30 grounded

North harbour wall
Guillemot - one far offshore, one close inshore
Twite - 33
Med Gull - 1 ad
Big shoal of medium-sized fish which kept jumping out of the water

Ringing
A few bits:  New birds: 6 Redwing, 4 Blackbird, 3 Chaffinch, 3 Bullfinch, 2 Wren, 2 Long-tailed Tit, Coal Tit, Reed Bunting, male Sparrowhawk, Robin, Greenfinch

Moth
One Feathered Thorn

Butterfly
One Red Admiral