Northwesterly lie-in

Heysham Obs
The original posting was grossly unfair to the JBP seawatch team who were in place this morning before some of us had crawled out of bed.  It was, I'm afraid, one of those "one hour of tedium and 10 seconds of excitement" routines, which characterises most inner Morecambe Bay seawatching once the Arctic terns have gone through and the less numerate and far more erratic skuas are the 'sole' order of the day.  JBP produced two distant skuas prior to any Heysham coverage and these were thought to be Poms.  However, they would not come closer into the bay and were lost in the direction of Morecambe.  Much later in the morning (c1115hrs), dark and light Arctic Skuas were blogging together in the inner bay
Heysham north wall 0815-0845
A bit too north-westerly, as was forecast.  However, should have been here a bit earlier, but assumed others would be in place here or JBP!  Needed to leave to do the WeBS count & keep half an eye on the sea but nothing else of note was seen pre-1000hrs
Arctic Skua - dark morph in and across towards Ulverston direction
Gannet - distant adult in
Auk spp - 3 together out, probably Razorbill

Ocean Edge foreshore
Wheatear - biggish female

Heysham head
Wheatear - one

Spoonfed

Heysham Obs
Another Plan A or Plan B morning was much more clear-cut decision-wise than last Wednesday and it doesnt look good for getting the second CES visit in at Middleton, even this early in the time-period.........as its going to get even windier & this includes some north-westerly rubbish (= 'lie-in!').

North harbour wall 0600-0715
Pomarine Skua - lm picked up on a 'sweep' and had probably lifted off the sea as it didn't pass through the optics earlier trained on the outer bay.  It then flew into the bay and landed rather distantly next to two other skuas which had also been missed!  They looked identical in size to the Pom, but one bird appeared to be a dark morph, very much the minority amongst Pom Skuas and not a morph I have seen in the bay, although fairly regular on the Solway.  So best to leave as unidentified as they floated even further out of sight at an awkward rear-on angle.  Anyone at JBP? [c0617hrs]
Arctic Skua - dm in 0608hrs, much closer inshore than the other skuas
Arctic Tern - one out (a surprise as there have not been any in recent days)
Red-throated Diver - one in very high
Gannet - flock of 5 out
Common Scoter - a typically anarchic straggle of c15 heading out far offshore was the only 'notable' sighting after 0625hrs

Office area
Spotted Flycatcher - one on the fence between reserve and non-op land, then flew strongly towards the classroom

Struggle over the sea

Heysham Obs
Unless there was a massive overland skua passage in the first hour after dawn (we were a bit late), it was predictably poor this morning with a combination of fairly useless uniform low/medium cloud with little in the way of precipitation.  In these conditions with a fresh WSW, you need a mixture of squalls and clear slots to produce the goods

North harbour wall 0610-0840
Arctic Skua - 2 dm 'in' 0615, presumably the same two out at 0648.  lm 'out' at 0620.  Conditions not encouraging for overland migration with fairly low uniform cloud level
Gannet - 12 out
Red-throated Diver - 2 out
Swallow - 3 'in'

Ocean Edge/Red Nab
Mallard - one male
Whimbrel - 2

Early morning skywatch rewards

Heysham Obs
Tricky seawatching this morning in a light/mod south-westerly.  Conventional 1/2 horizon scope-watching would have produced one scoter, one red-throat, one Gannet and the Mute Swans!  All the rest of the stuff was along the top margin of the viewing field and probably just out of range.  Fortunately alerted to this quickly by the flock of Arctic Skuas which determined the binocular-scan-dominated strategy   This was Plan B if it was too windy for the Middleton CES. which it was.

North harbour wall 0540-0710
Arctic Skua - flock of 3 in at 0550 (2 dm, one lm), dm in very high at 0640
Red-throated Diver - 5 out, then circled up and headed towards Barrow, at 0555, one out, one out
Kittiwake - flock of 34 flew in high at 0558
Common Scoter - 6 in, one out, one out
Gannet - one out and across
Sandwich Tern - one in (the ONLY tern spp seen, including outfalls check)
Razorbill - one out (high!)
Mute Swan - 5 imms flew NNW across the bay towards Ulverston 
Swallow - 3 north-east

Compare and contrast

Heysham Obs
Stephen Grimshaw has seen one of our Twite on Iona in the last few days, a new island tick for 'our' birds (one previously on Staffa).  It was ringed at Heysham in either October or November last year.  Thanks Stephen.

Yesterday east coast's Spurn had Swallows moving throuh at a rate of about 370 per hour, recorded 5306 birds of 60 species including Spoonbill, Montagu's Harrier, Red-rumped Swallow etc etc etc (see http://www.trektellen.nl/ for full details).

Today west coast's Heysham had Swallows moving through at a rate of about 30 per hour, recorded 40 birds of 6 species (slightly more than yesterday!!) including such exotics as Gannet and Whimbrel.  Mind you the observers at Spurn were there for over 12 hours whereas both yesterday and today the Heysham counts were only for about a 24th of that time.  So who knows what was missed????? (I think I can guess).

0730-0850 Wind S F5 & early afternoon, wind SSW, no cloud
Red-throated Diver 2 in then on
Whimbrel 4
Swallow 32
Gannet 2 in early, 1 across afternoon
Common Tern - 1 on Heysham 1 outfall
Arctic Tern - 8 on Heysham 2 outfall
Eider 3 on and 1 out
Arctic Skua - dark morph blogging outer bay on incoming tide

Pied Wagtail (female) gathering nest material and taking it to the Centrica area.

Moths
Mother Shipton x 3 sheltered bits of dog track/nature park

Hey ho, that's the way it goes..... Jean.

Most of the terns move on

Heysham Obs
Only time for two quick tern counts today.  Below is a pic of that local rarity, a Common Tern, on the outfalls recently.  Small numbers of Common Terns have been on the outfalls for several days now, giving instructive comparison with the more numerous Arctic:

Taken just after the afternoon cloudburst (thanks Janet)



Outfalls area & north harbour wall

Arctic Tern - 15 in the morning, just 10 mid-afternoon on the tide

Common Tern - one in the morning, not seen near high tide

Swallow - 9 north in the only 9 minutes of morning observation!

Whimbrel - 2 at high tide, Red Nab

** With a bit of luck and more SW in the wind and a few nice heavy showers, we could have a few skuas this week but the tide times are currently awful!

Any landbirds slipping through?

Heysham Obs
Another morning where you had the feeling that something was being/had been missed.  A female Whinchat on the north wall mound was the only definite landbird migrant encountered as ringing was knocked on the head by early morning rain and Ocean Edge foreshore lacked any Wheatears until later in the day

Outfalls & area
Arctic tern - c85, much reduced numbers by the late afternoon (21)
Black Tern - 3 throughout
Common Tern - c5
Whimbrel - 7
Wheatear - 2
Dunlin - 10
Middleton NR model boat pond
Common Sandpiper - 1
Tufted Duck - 2 pairs
YESTERDAY: 4 Common Sandpipers and what appears to have been a sub-adult male Red-breasted Merganser

NB The suggested answer to the title post from nearby Walney was 'yes' [male Golden Oriole]

Spanish plume brings a bit of a damp squib

Yesterdays Reeve's Pheasant (no news either way today!).  Thanks Brian

Heysham Obs
The sort of morning where the amount of vegetation at this site mitigates against the possibility of just one decent bird being found somewhere (as does the usual Saturday lack of observers!).  We await the reports from the more vegetation-friendly likes of Hilbre, the Calf, Bardsey and possibly Walney to see if they have a Subalpine Warbler each nestling in a Heligoland trap (or Rossall?!)

North harbour wall 0710-0730
Arctic Tern - 22 'in'
Black Tern - one 'in' (with above)
Swallow - 47 'in'
Whimbrel - 2 'in'

Outfalls/Ocean Edge
Arctic Tern - 84
Common Tern - 4
Black Tern - 2
Dunlin - 36
Ringed Plover - 9
Whimbrel - 7

Belated ringing by office
Got what it deserved with a start as late as 0730 with new-ringed birds amounting to two Whitethroat and a Lesser Whitethroat plus a Whitethroat male first ringed in 2007.  Then the wind got up.

Elsewhere
Great White Egret Griesdale Hide Leighton Moss

A tale of two supercilia and a Reeve's Pheasant twitch

A couple of pics from yesterday at high tide (thanks Janet).  The photo ops were flagged up on the LDBWS site and apparently there was quite a turn-out of long lenses, but havn't seen any pics from anyone else.   Any photo blogs with any on, please?

Heysham Obs
Donald Sutherland's 'negative waves' utterances came to mind as Plan 'B' was set in motion on the north harbour wall in the (unforecasted??) rain.  No chance of any ringing and nothing on/passing over the 'offshore' sea.   To pass the time, I wondered how the RSPB would brand this morning and during the struggle with my limited vocabulary, it all started to 'go positive' closer inshore.  Must try this strategy again!

North harbour wall & area 0555-0655 & 0900-0930
Swallow - 27 north in first hour, 241 0900-0930, mainly 'in-off(ish)' over the red buoy, then along the harbour
Sand Martin - 6 north in second period (5 together)
House Martin - 3 north plus 3 north in second period
Sedge Warbler - on 'in-off', landed on the railings, then on to the mound
Whinchat - male by the twite feeding station - excellent bird to brighten up the morning!
Wheatear - 2 heliport area
Blackbird - male with food alongside the mound - the ONLY confirmed breeding species in SD36!!! (its somewhere in the gorse clump)
Black Tern - 5 on the seaward end of Heysham one outfall, 4 (of these) on Heysham 2 outfall early afternoon
Common Tern - 3 as above, at least one Heysham 2 early afternoon
Arctic Tern - c65 on Heysham one & two outfalls, assuming none are out of sight on the beach

Ocean Edge foreshore (low tide)
23 Dunlin and 6 Ringed Plover.  Memo: check the high tide for displaced Kentish - think positive!
Whimbrel - minimum of 7

Below the Obs Tower
Reeve's Pheasant - one roadside along with ordinary Pheasant for comparison.  Apparently a "pheasant release" on the nearby golfcourse recently

Non-operational land
Nesting Ringed Plover plus 2+ eggs

General
This seemed to be the first 'big' day' for gull nest-building with material being gathered over a wide area by the whole roof-nesting population!

Large Swallow movement and terns in situ

Heysham Obs
Outfalls/north harbour wall
Arctic Tern - just 12 heading off NE but a gradual build-up on the outfalls from 55 first thing to 272 at 1000hrs
Black Tern - as above; just one first thing building up to 9 by 1000hrs
Common Tern - 4 on outfalls
White Wagtail - one
Swallow - sample counts gave 170 0700-0730, then 41 in just 5 minutes c0900hrs
House Martin - 2 north-east
Gannet - one distantly

Heysham NR
Two mist nets were only set for two rounds to see what was happening.  Seemingly not a lot, with the only migrant capture being a Lesser Whitehtroat.  No evidence of Wheatears at any of the coastal sites - usually a good indicator of passerine 'action'