Why did we not turn round at Shap when the Gwynedd skuas came on the pager at lunchtime???

Heysham Obs
...........work can wait in these circumstances

Fortunately John Wood was able to retrieve the situation at the Stone Jetty and some observations were made by Tony at JBP. Here is John's report. Note the caution as the light is tricky looking out of the Bay in the afternoon and therefore the flock of 23 was not rubber-stamped as Poms.

1515-1815 hrs. A phone call from PJM suggesting a sea watch this afternoon as "the winds are blowing Poms up the Irish Sea". No car available so had a bus ride to the Stone Jetty.....
1540 Pomarine Skua 'in' fairly high steady flight.
1610 Pomarine Skua 'in' again fairly high.
1615 Skua flock of 23 much higher and more distant NW towards Black Combe, finally going out of range.
1625 Arctic Skua 'in'
1650 flock 5 Skua 'out' very low, all appeared dark but silhouetted.
1725 after heavy shower -
Fulmar 2 'in'
Gannet 2 'in'
1735 Gannet 3 'out'
1742 Arctic Skua dark morph 'in' then landed on sea.
1750 Arctic Skua 'in' and attacking Lesser Black-backed Gull. Followed immediately by
2 Arctic Skua 'out' one light & one dark morph. Both attacked one of a flock of 6 Kittiwake forcing it to disgorge which they both dropped to on the sea.
1758 Arctic Skua 'in'
Red-throated Diver 'out'

Heysham north wall 1840-1920
Pomarine Skua - light morph seen at 1845 and probably the same more distantly at c1910 - seemed to land on sea

Earlier:
North harbour wall 0750-0840
Black Guillemot - in residence throughout
Med Gull - a nice summer-plumaged 1st summer on the sea 0750-0800 Purple Sandpiper - summer plumaged adult mobile between NHW and under wooden jetty with about 35 Turnstone
Swallow - 18 NE - all via the harbour!

Absolutely nothing moving offshore!

Middleton Industrial Est
1 Wheatear

Elsewhere
At least one Pom Skua and 30 Common Scoter off JBP early evening

What else is around in the atrocious/fall conditions?

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall 0745-0815, 1215-1245
Spotted Flycatcher - one near the Twite feeding station
Whinchat - one by the heliport
Wheatear - 4
Zero offshore early am

LBB Gulls starting to nest build on the Centrica offices! A full count is planned of roofnesting gulls. Any Power Station workers with some height to overlook the harbour able to help here, please? The south side of the old Fishers roof is especially difficult (perhaps from by Duke of Rothesay traffic lights?)

Ocean Edge 0820-0845, 1245-1315
After the above, reasonable expectations but the rain was becoming torrential and only the following were seen during short attempts to see what was on the rocks:
Wheatear - 3
Whimbrel - 2

Lunchtime produced:
Arctic tern - 9 at seaward end of Heysham 2 - all sitting on railings
Sandwich tern - 2 off Heysham 2

Rain-soaked check around the office/Obs tower pond 0850-0900
This was prompted by a Spotted Flycatcher on the Obs Tower pond fence
Spotted Flycatcher - just the one
Sedge Warbler - a least 5

Lunchtime vis mig
Swallow - 33 NE (inc. loose flock of 19)
Swift - 4 NE

Elsewhere
Dockacres complex (Pine Lake etc etc) 'dead' mid-afternoon apart from c250 hirundines of the common varieties.

A black and white lunchtime

..........following more early morning rubbish for a suffering Jean (see yesterday, the day before, the day before.........). Why there were no Spotted Flycatchers seen/caught is beyond comprehension e.g. 20 at nearby Walney.

Ocean Edge foreshore 1215-1245, then north wall to 1310
Black tern - 6 - one on Heysham one outfall, the rest south of Heysham 2 along the channel
Arctic tern - 47 as above
Wheatear - one
Swallow - 26 NE
House martin - 1 NE

Ringing
A few migrants including Blackcap, Sedge, Garden and two female Willow Warblers but no Spotted Flycatchers!

Insects
Large White - 7 north along the seawall and at least 5 others seemingly heading north at more inland locations

Elsewhere
Black tern briefly on Tewitfield fisheries this afternoon

Sheer dredgery

Spent another 1.5 hours watching the dredger go in and out of the harbour.

An ebbing tide and a strong offshore wind are obviously not the conditions conducive to seawatching - just one Sandwich Tern in. Not sure whether you can count the 100 Black-headed Gulls which also flew into the Bay.

The vis was little better:

0630-0800
Swallow 8
Swift 2
Linnet 1
Lesser Redpoll 1

On the sea:
5 Mute Swans (mum, dad and the kids).

Elsewhere
Leighton Moss - 4 Black Terns, Curlew Sandpiper, 2 spotted Redshank.
Borwick Waters - 1 Black Tern

No news

No news received today.

Nice weather, shame about the (lack of) terns

North Harbour Wall 0615-0940

Brisk eastnortheasterly wind and clear skies favoured vis rather than seawatching.

Just 12 Arctic Terns on the outfalls and 12 Sandwich Terns on the sandbank at low tide.
Whimbrel 1 on the skear and 4 flew into the Bay
Dunlin 18 on the skear then flew SW
Knot 50 on the skear.

Vis
Swallow 49 NE
Sand Martin 3 NE
Lesser Redpoll 14 NE
Goldfinch 2 NE
Linnet 8 NE
alba Wagtail 1

Grounded (on the sandplant mound)
Wheatear 1 female
GRASSHOPPER WARBLER -brilliant views down to 2 feet!

Elsewhere
Yesterday - 2 Black-necked Grebes at Blea Tarn reservoir
Today - Black Tern over canal at Carnforth (details later)

Heysham Obs.

North Harbour Wall
0630-0830
Wheatear 1 female
Pink-footed Goose 6 SW
Linnet 1
Swallow heard

Middleton IE WEBS
4 Mute Swan TB pair sitting, fence pond nest empty
9 Coot + chicks 3 (2 week) & 1 (new)
3 Moorhen
6 Shelduck
1 Mallard
2 Little Grebe
3 Lapwing
7 Greylag
21 Swallow
15 House Martin
4 Swift (2 mating)
1 Great Spotted Woodpecker
2 Wheatear

Bits but no showers to spice things up until we had to pack up!

I'm working away during the easterlies this week. Re-the daily postings, please could you send any sightings to Jean Roberts (see right hand column) or post on the LDBWS site. As well as general sightings of interest, please could you forward any seabird records, even the likes of Gannet and Fulmar or half a dozen Arctic terns, as we try and be comprehensive with spring seabird coverage. Thanks very much. Pete

Secondly apologies to anyone accessing this site who has not received a reply to an e-mail sent during the daytime. The computer I use at that time has a problem with sending e-mails. Will sort when I return.

Heysham Obs
Sightings from other Irish Sea sites seem to indicate that we missed the best chance of multiple Poms this week by leaving too early i.e. before the heavy rain was even on the horizon - did anyone hang in beyond c1200 please?

North wall area to 1200 (no early morning coverage (pre-0700))
Pink-footed Goose - flock flying across the bay variously estimated at 250 or 500 by observers with other priorities
Black Tern - a major surprise in a non-easterly was two flying out together at 0715hrs
Arctic Tern - 27 blogging to the south of the wooden jetty
Common Tern - first of the year on the outfalls
Sandwich Tern - 14 blogging and c13 out
Common Scoter - 4 out
Gannet - 3
Black Guillemot by wooden jetty
Arctic Skua - 2 dm in 1140 (presumably those on the pager for JBP at 1215?)

Ocean Edge foreshore
Wheatear - 11 OE foreshore

Mammals
Grey Seal seen briefly

Elsewhere
2 Arctic Skua JB Point at 1215hrs. Flock of 6 Arctic Skua seemingly unhesitatingly headed inland at JBPoint early afternoon just before the heavy rain. CATTLE EGRET by Sand Villa (along A588 just north of Lane Ends) late afternoon at least

Slack tedium punctuated by quality

Heysham Obs
A rather strange morning with lengthy periods of tedium due to the complete lack of any numbers of common seabirds after the first hour or so. However, there were quite a number of skuas seen by various observers. The most interesting sighting involved a 'sky scan' during a rather belated WEBS at about 1340hrs which revealed 31 'dots' in two groups "above" the north harbour wall. I assumed they were hirundines, but they then circled down and revealed themselves as Arctic Terns, therefore originally higher than I thought they were! They fed in a line off Stage one outfall before flying in and across the bay towards Ulverston. The first high-flying Arctic Terns seen in strong westerlies.

North harbour wall early morning to 0930
Pomarine Skua - close light morph ad started to climb into the sky as it flew NE at 0813hrs. This was a full-tailed individual. At 1015hrs a light morph was seen at JB Point which had an "almost fully grown tail". This was multi-observed at very close range and seen again intermittently until about 1215hrs - presumably just the one bird. At 1130 a light morph adult flew out of the bay past Heysham. Therefore at least two, probably three birds involved with the early morning Heysham sighting of a bird starting to climb when conditions were clear probably different from the other two.
Skua spp - one very distant in at 0800 - prob dark Arctic
Arctic Skua - one rapidly in flying quite high at 0640 (no morph details), light morph in hugging the sea at 0855 as the cloud cover increased, dark morph rapidly in about 1100hrs [JBP data suggests this bird was accompanied by 2 others as they had three approaching from Heysham direction at 1107hrs- this could easily have been the case as the bird(s) was often invisible due to waves], 2 dark morph in at 1150hrs, light morph on the sea, then in at 1330hrs [3 seen heading for Heysham, as viewed from Knott End, at 1156hrs, do not seem to have been picked up]
Manx Shearwater - 1
Gannet - 29 out early on, then just another 3 logged
Fulmar - 4, including 3 together
Whimbrel - 5 out, 4 on Red Nab
Red-throated Diver - one circling high into the sky early morning
Kittiwake - 2 ad in, 2CY blogging
Common Scoter - 1
Sandwich Tern - 3
Arctic Tern - 31 (see intro)
Guillemot - one floating in
Dunlin - 78 out

Elsewhere
Two Arctic Skua resting on the JBPoint groyne flew out to sea at 0925hrs. Pom Skua JBP (see above). Little Tern just to the north of Morecambe Stone Jetty at lunchtime

Surprisingly poor - not enough squalls?

Heysham Obs
North harbour wall 0530ish to 1130 (ongoing)
Pomarine Skua - one out then in again at 0825hrs
Bonxie - distant bird in then appeared to land on sea
Skua spp - dark bird out distantly
Arctic Skua - 2 dm in early, lm & dm in mid morning, lm on sea off Ocean Edge (2dm & lm on sea off nearby Cockersands c0925)
Red-throated Diver - 4
Fulmar - 6
Gannet - 14 out 5 in
Sandwich Tern - 10 early morning only
Swallow - 23 in
Arctic Tern - one out
Guillemot - one in & one on water
Whimbrel - one in, 2 out & 5 on Red Nab
Sanderling - 4+4 out
Ringed Plover - 4 out, 27 in
Dunlin - 6+10+15 out, 45 in
Black Guillemot - on wooden jetty/in hole late morning but very elusive/"invisible"!
Purple Sandpiper - one on wooden jetty & c170 Turnstone
Kittiwake - 2CY blogging early on

Mammals
At least 2 and probably 3 Common Porpoise

Elsewhere
The above Bonxie was seen at JBP. Mid-afternoon Osprey at Leighton Moss. 3 Arctic Skua (2 dm) on the sea off Cockersands c0925.