Early morning seawatch

Heysham North wall  (Pete Crooks) 0525 - 0830 - 83 Arctic Tern, 17 Kittiwake, Sandwich Tern c6, 19 Gannet, c120 Common Scoter, 1 Mute Swan, 1 Black-T Godwit, 1 Rock Pipit just tootling around on its own - the ‘mythical’ spare bird?!

1 Grey Seal

Sea so far hasnt included any albatrosses!

Not too bad this morning and Nick has just texted to say the Arctic Tern passage has 'flurried' with 80 in last 15 mins 0900-0915

Sea 0615-0930
Arctic Tern - 200 counting Nick's latest 80 (one gang of 40 high inland over Heysham Head just prior to the first DM Arctic S doing the same)
Black Tern - one on its own close inshore heading in
Common Scoter - 80ish mainly going out
Manx Shearwater - unusually tight flock of six in (IOY)
Kittiwake - high flock of 6 adults in
Arctic Skua - one DM high NE over Heysham Head 0625, one int/DM in 0750
Sandwich Tern - counting distant birds well over 60 blogging, gradually reducing as the morning went on
Swallow - c40 in
Sand Martin - 2 in

Rock Pipit - both parents seen with food for the harbour wall pair

Guillemot - still in harbour near waterfall, often sitting on structures (has been reported as a 'penguin'!!)

Thats more like it - Morecambe Bay hosts a major passage

 Coverage was by Nick Godden (SJ), Malcolm Downham on Heysham Skeer, Pete Marsh and Jean Roberts at Heysham sites. 0600 to 1515 at one site or another. This is the combined effort with duplication almost certainly avoided unless some birds went high inland but then returned to the sea to the south  behind observers - highly unlikely.  The cloudy and sometimes wet conditions seemed to lead to many birds hugging the sea although it was noticeable from mid afternoon that more birds were climbing high.  Thanks for the pics Malcolm

Arctic Tern - c2910 in
Black Tern - 65 in, most during the heavy rain when Nick absent - biggest flocks 28, 13, 8
Arctic Skua - 19 in - as far as I am aware all were dark or darkish morphs and all ones or twos heading in
Pomarine Skua - two light morph together early pm - no observers at Heysham at the time
Little Tern - one in 0655 only seen SJ
Roseate Tern - one in 0712 only seen SJ
Sandwich Tern - c20 blogging
Common Tern - 12 scattered amongst the Arctics - easy to pick out!
Hobby - adult in low over the sea then up over Heysham
head
Swallow - c35 in
Whimbrel - c18 in
Kittiwake - 146 in two flocks - only seen off SJ

Trickle of landbird migrants but limited coverage

Not a lot of yesterdays birds left

Still to do another check but the early morning round suggested no a lot new had arrived and a lot had disappeared from yesterday despite unhelpful night migration weather overnight

Wheatear - 7
Whinchat - 1
Arctic Skua - lingering dark morph which then disappeared towards Walney was the only seabird seen - no terns
Red-throated Diver - 2 on
Great-crested Grebe - one flew over from Barrow direction and landed off Heysham head in the usual GCG channel - new bird [clutching at straws for interest today!]?

A single net was put up for a bit and caught three Willow Warbler, a new Lesser Whitethroat and strangely an unringed adult male Great Tit!

Stock Dove appear to be breeding on Middleton this year.  Recently they have been an erratic visitor to eg the rubble mounds on Middleton after when we first started here in the 1980s being a quite widespread breeding bird in eg rabbit burrows

Thanks Malcolm and here is Dan's Portland Bill-style Tree Pipit vis mig shot from yesterday!

 

 

East coast style fall

Thanks Dan

Worked Heysham with Dan this am with Malcolm out on the skeer.  Contact with Ian and our own observations saw that the weather was not conducive to sea passage into the Bay.  Plan B was a landbird search and the bits and bobs of isolated bushes were a productive starting point including Grasshopper Warblers lurking on both the South Qusy and North harbour wall.  One isolated buddliea along the north wall held at least three Willow Warbler (one cold coloured bird), grasshopper Warbler  and two Wheatear.  Unfortunately there was a mixup over who was available for ringing and it was impossible to get any real handle on eg Willow Warbler numbers

Coastal grounded
Willow Warbler - 10 plus
Wheatear - minimum 40 in gangs of up to nine
Whinchat - 3 (one Male)
Whitethroat - one heliport seawall
Garden warbler - one Heysham Head
Tree pipit - one in off
Grey Wagtail - late migrant in off
Arctic Tern - Singleton spiralling high and 10 in distantly

Knot - 1300
Dunlin - sev thousand south

Grey Seal - at least 5 (3 juvs)

 

 A few of today’s other birds from coastal coverage from Dan and Malcolm - thanks for these

Very unhelpful band of rain

A belt of rain completely blocked passerine migration this am but a few Arctic Tern managed to slip through

Arctic Tern - c134 in
Red throated Diver - 5 in
Common Scoter - 2 with Eider in low tide channels
Great crested Grebe - 8
Knot - 500 on skeer
Willow Warbler - greyish bird ringed

Mixed Bag

A seawatch whilst waiting for the cafe to open reminded me of an incident when I was with an American tour group at a Putple Martin-less Burt of Lewis.  A WA (Wallace Arnold) driver appeared with half a dozen people who is his words were like the living dead from the neck upwards. Whilst I was rabbiting on about coastal erosion I suddenly realised my group were staring at the driver and his unfortunate punters with a mixture of pity and macabre fascination.  He simply ushered them off the bus pointed his hand in one direction, acknowledged the array of hearing aids and screamed “Sea”. Then he pointed in the other direction and bellowed “Seals” before sitting down and lighting a fag.  This 30 min seawatch  consisted of a lot of incoming sea and four Grey Seal.  Prior to that the morning had been a bit better

Cuckoo - one calling Heysham Head North side
Pomarine Skua - in the almost certain category was one sitting in the Kent channel which was then lost changing vantage points.  It was probably the 0655 from Fleetwood but has to stay as light morph spp here
Wheatear - gang of 7 on rocks below Heysham heliport
Arctic Tern - flocks of 16 and 5 fishes and then climbed and headed NE
Sandwich Tern - 4
Red throated Diver - two in
Great crested grebe - 10

Grey seal - at least four

Malcolm’s pics:

Nine of the Great cressted grebe plus two Red-brested merganser

A bit of sandwich sharing

Last Dunlin on the skeer

White wagtail on south harbour wall

Common Scoters and Grey Seals top the bill

Another mediocre May morning at peak migration time although an earlier seawatching start should have added Arctic Skua and Tern to the mix (per Rossall)

Sea 0750-0930
Common Scoter - c106 in several flocks of up to 30
Red-throated Diver - 3+3 in very high, one out - all sp
Kittiwake - at least one of c20 in a tight distant bunch floating in on the sea was this species courtesy of wing flap (sometimes Common Gulls are mixed in Kitt flocks). 
Common Sandpiper - one flew across the harbour mouth (IOY)
Knot - 200 in summer plumage flew out, c500 very distantly heading north
Wheatear - two
Whimbrel - one OE saltmarsh
Rock Pipit - male on guard near the nest
NO eg hirundine passage

Mammals
Grey Seal - record count of an absolute minimum of four, probably five floating in with the tide and perhaps none of these the usual loitering one which stays by the outfalls

Moth
One male Muslin Moth in trap

Poor but little perseverance!

Coastal coverage
Gannet - one
Sandwich Tern - 6
Whimbrel - 4
Great crested Grebe - 8
Wheatear - 2
Immature gulls building up on skeers but nothing obviously good amongst them

Grey Seal - 1

Cold clear and dead

.....text from Ian at Rossall and it applied here with the sea being especially dead

Red throated Diver - one on
Sandwich Tern - two on no 5 buoy
Whinchat - female near half moon bay cafe
Wheatear - 7
Swallow - 2 North
Guillemot - in harbour
Nothing in the mist nets of note

Grey Seal off outfalls

No moths