Wednesday

Reports of northern brown and brown Argus in the recording area to be confirmed

Max of 6 med gulls

Rock pipits feeding at least  two young, no sign of the other pair

Rock Pipit confirmed breeding

Its a bit complicated, but we have definite evidence now with two recently fledged young being fed on 6th July and earlier pics showing insects being taken to the nest by both parents.  Thanks very much to John Dent for alerting us to this as it would perhaps otherwise have remained on Flickr

More detail later

Coastal coverage
Curlew - 400 exactly Red Nab and 15 nearby on mud at HT
Whimbrel - 4
Bar-tailed Godwit - 1
Ringed Plover - 3
Redshank - 31
Med Gull - max of 14 this evening

Common Sandpiper - 2 by wooden jetty

Med gulls again

Another no show for rock pipit - not looking good.

15 meds this evening on outfalls

Two ringlet Heysham Nr

Reasonable CES

Middleton CES produced a few warblers including a Reed Warbler from elsewhere to continue an impressive year for birds ringed elsewhere

Unfortunately not the case with Meds with numbers suppressed as heysham one outfall is not in full flow for about a month.   Max of 5 ads seen today and no reports of Shag or Rock Pipits

Singing Male grasshopper warbler middleton central marsh - first for a bit and the usual Cetti’s singing in the central marsh

Pic update for last few days tomorrow

Baby birds at the feeder

Inshore coverage saw a maximum of 6 ad and 2 2CY Med reported and at least 180 Curlew at high tide on Red Nab

Ringing by the office produce about half a dozen each of baby Dunnock, Blue Tit, Great Tit (including one ringed in our nestbox), Chaffinch but a bit of a dearth of Green and Goldfinches. 2-3 each of Chiffchaff, Whitethroat and Willow Warbler.

A Yellow-tail moth resided on the shaded side of the office wall all day and a Grey Seal was off the outfalls

Meds and end of the moth trap

The seemingly simple process of changing the security lights on the office to motion sensor has been lost in a tangle of bureaucracy/inertia somewhere in Manchester.  The security lights on full blast all night renders the moth trap completely useless.  A few moths were coming through the window but not worth a special journey to check a handful and obviously not on to leave them in there to die, so the window was boarded up and the room will be extra storage space.   Very frustrating example of a subcontract where there are no obvious appraisals in place (comment by pete marsh as lancashire county Moth recorder)

Med gull - four adults by Heysham  one power station outfall

Ringlets reach the dog walk track

Thanks to Janet and Malcolm for info

Med Gull - 6 x ads on drop tide evening the max count - including right leg metal ringed bird

'Thinly spread' sums up Ringlet status with presence along the dog track for the first time

Green Sandpiper still present

Green Sandpiper still on Middleton Tim Butler pond

Little Grebe plus at least one young still

Obvious Otter activity on Middleton overnight targeting signal crayfish

Very quick negative check for Rock Pipit otherwise no coastal coverage

White plume moth in moth trap

Mixed bag of action

Rock Pipit - seen on power station fence

Shag - the 2CY in wing moult in harbour

Med Gull - 10 x Ad including metal ringed bird, 1 x3CY with either orange or red darvic, 2 x 2CY

Green Sandpiper - one Middleton Tim Butler pond for large part of day

Ringing at Middleton - a real mixed bag, mainly Willow Warbler and Whitethroat.  Oddity was an adult male Swallow ringed as a juvenile in a Middleton roost in August 2015 and a female Cetti's Warbler with a brood patch is the nearest we have got to breeding this year so far.  One juvenile Grasshopper Warbler but it looks like a lot of the Sedge Warblers have moved off

Ringlet drifted along the track between central and western marsh  

More meds

Rock pipit seen very briefly by wooden jetty

Med gull: - 5 ads and two 2cy.   Only ring seen was on the presumed regular metal ringed ad

Whimbrel - 1

Ringlet -  4 plus middleton

Nothing of note in Moth trap