A grey miserable day

Heysham Obs
Teal - 12 Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Black-tailed Godwit - 12 Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Med Gull - 2 adults north wall (one Czech-ringed)
Twite - 26 north wall
Twite/Linnet - 16 Ocean Edge saltmarsh

No sign of any Purple Sandpiper or the GND at high tide

Great Northern Diver!

Barn Owl by the new roundabout on the bypass - right on the eastern edge of the recording area - about 1730hrs

Heysham Obs
Great Northern Diver
What appeared to be a winter adult was showing very well around the outfalls/wooden jetty for just over 30 minutes around midday, before swimming 'out to sea' (thanks Sean)
Rock Pipit - one south harbour wall
Mistle Thrush - one south harbour wall
Twite - 68 north wall/south wall, 13 Ocean Edge saltmarsh edge
Purple Sandpiper - TWO again on the wooden jetty this morning.  The 2011 appearance of the Stone jetty individual could just have been a reflection of poor coverage in that area, but this is emphatically not the case at Heysham with lengthy EIAs as well as plenty of casual coverage.  At least one additional bird also took up residence in late 2009.  Interesting mid-winter movements but where from?
Teal - male OE saltmarsh edge
Linnet - 2 OE saltmarsh edge

Routine stuff

Heysham Obs
Brambling - one at office feeder
Raven - one over office
Med Gull - 2 adults harbour
Twite - c50 on seed
Cormorant - another high winter count of 57 on wooden jetty
Woodcock - single below Obs Tower (45E) and one NE corner (46A)

Fairly birdless off the path nature ramble

........around Heysham Nature reserve produced two Woodcock, but an absolute dearth of small birds with e.g. no Wren (including circumnavigating the whole reedbed area=prime winter habitat), Robin or Dunnock

Heysham Nature reserve circuit away from the feeders, including all round the wetland area 
Woodcock - 2
Blackbird - 3
Song Thrush - 1
Moorhen - 1
That seriously was it!!

North harbour wall
Twite - 47
Med Gull - ad in the harbour, another ad roosting on the old Fisher's roof - both at high tide
Meadow Pipit - one sandworks
Pied Wagtail - 1

Moth
One Winter Moth in the trap

Red-jacketed mutt produces the goods

Heysham Obs
.....by flushing a Jack Snipe from Ocean Edge saltmarsh........"the only thing they are any good for" was the opinion of a colleague this morning, who was trying to do a wader high tide survey on a dog-infested Barrovian beach!

The other thing this morning was a very quirky year list order with Med Gull before ANY large gulls (I've been inland until today) and the wader sequence from New Year's day being:  Lapwing: Woodcock: Snipe (SD66), then Turnstone at exactly the same time as Purple Sandpiper (& before anything else like Curlew/Oystercatcher!).  This was a product of concentrating on the road/avoiding anglers on the way to the Twite feeder, then driving & scanning the wooden jetty

Ocean Edge area
Jack Snipe - one as above
Black-tailed Godwit - 8 Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Mallard - 4 Ocean Edge saltmarsh
Wigeon - 88
Grey Plover - 8 Red Nab
Bar-tailed Godwit - 6 Red Nab
Linnet - 2(+?) saltmarsh
Twite - 16+ saltmarsh

Harbour area
Twite - 20 (4 unringed, 6 with red/white, rest from last autumn)
Med Gull - adult following ferry
Purple Sandpiper - 1 on wooden jetty
Red-breasted Merganser - female harbour mouth

Moths
The first moths of the year comprised a Mottled Umber and a Winter Moth

Elsewhere
Just to the north of the Obs area, a large rowan tree in Westfield Grove, off Albany Road, Morecambe west end held 11 Waxwing (following earlier sightings of up to 4 this week) - plenty of berries left

Sorry

For the first time, a blank day just after New Year - without having time to trawl all the personal blogs, it seems all the year listers came yesterday, as we were hoping for further reports of the usual targets.  We've either been getting the our usual 10km Square January surveys out of the way [plus in the process adding valuable Atlas Roving Records] or getting work on high moorland tops out of the way after rumblings of a minor repeat of December's weather coming up!

Back to the usual input tomorrow.  Apologies for a wasted journey to the site 

Thanks to New Years day listers

Heysham Obs
Happy new year to all

Tom Walkington kindly relayed the following sightings:
Purple Sandpiper - single showing well and two reported by at least one observer
Twite - at least 30
Med Gull - 2 adults
Red-throated Diver - one offshore

Deadlines!!

Heysham Obs
Brambling - one flew over whilst walking from the car to the HNR office

Mossgate park in NE of recording area (thanks Helen)
A good day at the bird feeders in our garden today with 4 siskins visiting, a male bullfinch and up to 6 bramblings.


Moths
Single Mottled Umber and Winter Moth in the trap

More moths

male Winter Moth (thanks Janet)

Heysham Obs
Having just emptied a trap at Millhouses with an amazing 103 moths therein (51 Mottled Umber, 33 Winter Moth, 2 Scarce Umber, 15 December Moth, 1 Satellite, 1 Chestnut), it was not unexpected to find 3 Winter Moth, another Parsnip Moth and one Mottled Umber in the Heysham trap!

North & south harbour walls (thanks Sean)
Purple Sandpiper - at the harbour mouth below the north harbour wall
Med Gull - 2 adults
Red-breasted Merganser - 2 in the harbour
Cormorant - 49 on jetty
Starling - c10,000 roosting on wooden jetty in the calm weather

Insects on the prowl

Heysham Obs
A shortish visit to the office included 1.5 hours with the feeder mist nets and a walk round the top end of the reserve.  It was positively spring-like, full of singing Great Tits and winter-gnat-type-things.  No Bramblings seen/heard today

Heysham NR 1045-1330
Reed Bunting - one briefly at the feeder
Pink-footed Goose - c180 south at 1205hrs
Skylark - one south at 1110hrs
Song Thrush - at least 4 round the office
Goldcrest - one below the obs tower

Moth trap
Two Winter Moth and a Parsnip Moth was an instant response to a cloudy above-zero night (12 moths in the Millhouses trap)