So long, and thanks for all the shrimps

The gentle breeze started NNW before drifting to east and ending up SE. Occasional cloud cover but mainly sunny and warm.

Heysham skear - low water 11:25

I went down early before the outer skear was exposed, we are moving to neap tides now and it won't be exposed at all again for a week, I wanted to see just how many Sanderling there were, and I just got there in time to see them moving off - this is what today's title refers to (MD).

Sanderling c40 - a large reduction from recent days. They were on the last exposed island of the middle skear. I took this scan shot to show the Sanderling in the foreground, plus the gulls further out waiting for the outer skear to become exposed.

This was 10:00, just after this clip, most of the Sanderling flew off north, just leaving 6, which probably soon followed.

No sign of any Canada goose this morning.

Grey Seal 1

Josh Hedley scanned the skear and low water channels from Heysham Head around low water (11:00-12:00)

Eider- 5 (two drakes)

Red-breasted Merganser- 3

Great Crested Grebe- 3 (including one displaying pair)

(Unfortunately missing the Sanderling by an hour!)

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Just a quick check of the two main ponds. 

Cetti's warbler - male singing from central marsh.

Wildfowl status unchanged, although the Mute and Mallard families are alternating ponds. When the Mute move in the Mallard move out.

Only dragonflies seen were Four-spotted chaser.

The Coot pair on the "no swimming " pond have three chicks, I think the dragonfly on this clip is also a Four-Spotted chaser (MD)

South shore

I went down to the lighthouse area while the tide was still low and the wind was in the east. These conditions in warm weather brings insects in off the sea.

Grasshopper warbler - one singing from the non operational land next to the Power Station, several bursts heard from the track along the eastern boundary of the Power Staion that takes you to Red Nab.

Insects:

The only ones actually seen coming in off were various small "flies" a seven spot Ladybird and a couple of "Bees".

But there were a lot of butterflies around which weren't there on Sunday:

Small White 11

Common Blue 9

Mother Shipton moth 1

The ringed male Rock Pipit was having more luck catching flies today,
but the good news is that they weren't for him, unfortunately I failed to see where he took them.

Grey seal 2

Finally, I mentioned the other day that the willow fluff was falling in a blizzard. With several calm dry days, in some places it is laying on the ground like snow.

These shots from the small anemometer area

Canada Goose moult migration gathers pace

Very light SE breeze early on freshened slightly during the day. Hot and sunny.

Cetti's warbler - central marsh bird singing on Middleton Nature Reserve 

A shot from Kevin. Male Linnet, treading carefully near the lighthouse.

Heysham skeer - low water 10:25 (MD)

Greylag goose 5 south

Canada goose 95 - as mentioned yesterday Canada goose movement has been increasing at this time of year, as non breeding birds fly north to moult sites.

Some have already started moulting 

09:40 a flock of 23 must have been resting on the outer skear, then flew low past me and carried on overland to the east.

Scanning the distant sand bars two more groups could be seen, at least 51 and 15

This is the larger of the two groups

At 11:15, five more flew in from the south and landed where the above birds would have been, but now behind the sand bar.

Great Crested grebe 4

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Curlew 16

Sanderling c200 only two individual birds on the middle skear, but flock of c200 seen flying to the outer skear.

This is the same species of jellyfish photographed by Steph the other day. That one had settled dome up, but this one had been rolled over, revealing why it is called a Medusa (postscript - I've always known these as Medusa, but the correct name is Barrel jellyfish, I will call them such in future MD)

The tentacles resemble a head of snakes

The one Steph saw high and dry at the top of the beach would have had no chance of survival, but this one has. As with all jellyfish the dome is safe to touch, and the Medusa's tentacles are only short.....

....so it is safe to handle them like this - this is only a small specimen.
Sometimes you need both hands, and some strength!

I placed it dome side up in a pool that would remain till the tide returned.

Jellyfish go with the flow, they can propel themselves, but mainly it is just to alter their depth. The direction of travel is at the mercy of the tides and currents. Some years you hardly see any, other years you see them every visit. I'll see if I can find a big one!

Cuckoo

Very light west wind turning round to the east by early evening. Hot and sunny.

Middleton Nature Reserve mid morning (MD)

Mute swan - 3 adult plus pair with 9 cygnets

Mallard - 2 male 2 female, one with 10 well grown young

Little grebe 1 adult with growing chick, expecting to be fed, on the "no swimming" pond. The detail of the birds isn't great on this clip, but I like the willow fluff blizzard 

Cetti's warbler - the "no swimming" pond male singing.

Cuckoo 1 male singing in the corner of Tradebe and the golf course. Cuckoos have just about been annual for the last few years. It was singing intermittently, but at least three "observers" managed to hear it, as yet no reports of a sighting. The attached clip shows nothing, but does allow you to hear it. I know everyone knows what a Cuckoo sounds like, but the last time I just showed an empty clip of a bird singing, the following day I managed good views.

Insects:

Not so many butterflies just Small Heath, Orange Tip, Green Veined White and Speckled Wood.

Just two species of dragonfly

Broad-bodied Chaser  
Males 3 mature 1 immature - Females 2 (one above)

Four-Spotted Chaser 8

South shore

Just a quick walk along the sea wall early evening

Rock Pipit 3 - 1 on Red Nab. Ringed male displaying near No.1 outflow. Another male displaying on inner harbour wall. No birds seen yet carrying food. The ringed bird may have done if it had managed to catch any. It was after flies, not very productively!

Grey Seal 1

Versatile Sanderlings and another nice moth

Very light west breeze all day with hazy sunshine.

Heysham skear (MD)

Two checks today, the first just after low water and again just as the skear was becoming exposed on the ebb tide. Totals are the highest count of the two visits:

Canada goose 12 in the far channel in the morning - this is the time of year when we get passage of birds on their moult migration.

Sandwich Tern 1 feeding in the evening.

Eider 9

Great Crested Grebe 13 (2 pairs displaying)

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Curlew 9

Whimbrel 1

Dunlin 1

Turnstone c20

Watch the bird on the left, it picks up three honeycomb worms in quick succession, from just below the silt. The force of the ebbing tide here is very strong and presumably had destroyed a section of honeycomb. The worms would have built new protective tubes, if they had escaped detection.

Sanderling at least 250

These are some of the morning birds feeding on the "sand" for a change. They are extremely mobile, partly because the tide is coming in quickly.

It was a different story in the evening as the tide was ebbing. Once again, the tide is going out so quickly it was leaving shrimps in the shallow water. Quite a few of the Sanderling were catching them. This one misses the first shrimp, then drops the second before catching it again. Still, quite a reasonable sized reward for the effort.

This is a nice shot of the plumage detail 

You can't look this good without plenty of grooming

Some nice shots from Kevin:

One of the Rock Pipits.
It had just finished performing its display flight. Harbour entrance.

Great Black-Backed gulls on Red Nab
The female looks like she is "thinking of England"!

Another nice moth. An Alder Kitten.
 It has a scattered distribution over the Southern half of the UK:
 Lancashire being at the Northern limit of its range.

Very high Sanderling record plus picture problem resolved.

Light winds mainly overcast with some light showers.

First a few of the images that I couldn't post yesterday - these from Janet:

Mother Shipton

Large Red Damselfly 

Empty Damselfly nymph case (exuvia)

This one from Steph - Medusa jellyfish on beach
below Knowlys Rd

The next few are mine (MD)

Mature male Broad-bodied Chaser

Female Broad-bodied Chaser

Now the horticultural section: 

The Orchids are stating to bloom on Middleton 

Best I can attempt is Marsh Orchid sp
But I'm happy to be corrected if wrong (MD)

The smell of Hawthorn blossom was overpowering on Middleton 
All the bushes were covered in blossom. It bodes well for holding
the winter thrushes later in the year.

The only records I have for today is my short evening walk. Recent visits to the skear have shown that the Sanderlings were choosing to feed on the outer skear, so today I went down early when just the inner skear was exposed and any birds concentrated - it paid off!

Great Crested Grebe 7

Red-breasted Merganser 2

Little Egret 15

Curlew 4

Whimbrel 2

Turnstone c25

Dunlin 6

Sanderling - absolute minimum 266. They were all over the inner skear, but the two main concentrations were on the western edge and along the north side. I counted 266 from a point in between these concentrations, but many would have been out of sight.

This flock is the core of the western birds, there are at least 125 in this flock.

This is less than half the birds along the northern edge

The status of Sanderling in the Observatory report is "A scarce and erratic passage migrant......" Not scarce this spring! I'm normally lucky to see one bird here at this time of year.

Sanderling - I like this shot

As well as the large numbers feeding and moving west along the skear, there was also a trickle of ones and twos flying in off from the west.

Kevin had some nice moths in his trap last night:

A nice variety of moths for the first time this year:

A Marbled Coronet
(which is quite locally distributed in Lancashire)

Elephant Hawk-moth

A beautiful Green Silver-lines, which is a first for me in Heysham.

System problems!

There must be a problem with Google blog, it won't allow me to upload images today, which is a shame as I have some interesting ones. Bizarrely it will allow me to upload videos. Hopefully the problem will soon be resolved, I'll try again later.

Almost breathless early on with what breeze there was from the south. It drifted round to west and freshened slightly. Sunshine pretty much all day

Seawatch report from Pete:

Just one hour of flat calm: 

2 Gannet in

25 Sandwich tern out

20 plus 1 Common Scoter out

2 Harbour porpoise

2 Grey seal

Cinnabar moth in-off!  

Heysham skear - low water 07:10 (MD)

Eider 9

Red-breasted Merganser 3

Great Crested Grebe 16 - there were 13 feeding in the channel run offs on the south side plus 3 on the north side. 

Curlew 4

Whimbrel 3

The only small waders I saw on the middle skear were 6 Turnstone and 3 Sanderling, but as the incoming tide flushed the birds off the outer skear there were more!

Turnstone - two flocks 11 and 18 both flew east inland

Sanderling - three flocks 41, 14 and 48 so 106 in total. These headed north into the bay

<flock>

The largest flock had a rest before setting off north

<jelly>

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Janet did the morning shift, and I checked in the afternoon.

Mute swan - pair with 9 cygnets on "no swimming" pond, 1 adult still hiding in reeds on main pond plus 2 on Tim Butler.

Coot pair with 2 chicks on main pond + two others

Mallard 2 male 2 female one with 10 chicks

Little grebe 1 adult on "no swimming" pond

Cetti's warbler - central marsh bird singing

Insects:

Lots of Damselflies including: Common Blue, Azure and Large Red.

Dragonflies:

Four-spotted Chaser 2

Broad-bodied Chaser 1 mature male, 2 female

Butterflies:

Common Blue

Small Heath

Green Veined White (this was the most common species)

Speckled Wood

Orange Tip

Moths:

Mother Shipton

Orchids:

Marsh sp

The wind eased, as did the sightings - still, not bad though!

The wind had eased slightly today, still largely from the west. A few sunny spells and the odd shower.

Seawatch report from Pete:

Heysham 0715-0915: watching from back of harbour as yesterday for shelter.  All birds heading in unless specified: 

2 dark morph Arctic Skua early on up the Kent channel

1 Common Tern blogging in harbour mouth

3 Sandwich Tern

5 Common Scoter

11 Sanderling

22 Swallow. 

Last hour like watching paint dry so didn’t stay for tide

A nice shot of a Sedge Warbler from Janet 

On the hedgerow Middleton Rd yesterday 

Heysham skear low water 18:50 (MD)

Arctic Skua 1 dark morph 

Eider c25

Great Crested grebe 6 - these two were displaying

Curlew 6

Turnstone 6

Sanderling 11 (wonder if they were the same 11 that Pete saw coming in this morning)

Little Egret 8 - these four were shrimping

On these very high spring tides the water ebbs so quickly that shrimps and small fish become stranded in shallow pools.

No sign of an Osprey this evening.

Excellent morning seawatch and an Osprey encore

The wind was quite fresh from the west to NW and back again. Some sunshine and showers

Seawatch report from Pete:

Heysham sea totals 0715-0945 with little after wind went NW around 0900.  Plenty of action but nothing scarce: 

Great Skua (Bonxie) 1

Arctic Skua one light morph and two dark morph birds together 

Fulmar 2 

Razorbill/Guillemot  16

Sanderling 4

Gannet 105 in, many immature  

Kittiwake 10 plus 24.

Then one Fulmar and one Manx Shearwater 1025-1055 

Many of the birds including the skuas were close in, unfortunately no one available with a camera.

Heysham skear - low water 18:00 (MD)

Eider 5

Great Crested Grebe 2

Whimbrel 1

Turnstone 7

Sanderling 131 in 14 groups ( single bird to 35) moving west along the north edge of the middle skear, most moved on to the outer skear, which wasn't checked.

Most were in "Spring" plumage

But the lead bird here is almost in Summer plumage

Osprey 1.

This is, on the face of it, an unremarkable clip of Black-headed gulls and a Grey Heron shrimping. But it marks the arrival of the Osprey 17:40. Towards the end of the clip, you can hear a few gull cries and then the BHGs lift and join in the calling.

All the gulls went up and I managed to locate a distant black spot. At 17:47 I took this clip it was still high and distant, so much so that the gulls had returned to feeding:

When I looked back again, I couldn't find it. Then at 17:55 it hauled itself and a fish onto a sandbar. I got the impression that the fish was too heavy for it to fly with (it turned out to be a large flatfish so probably not too heavy so much, but it would difficult to lift out of the water)

You can see the channel that it was feeding in behind the Osprey. It is the main drain that flows into the shallow "lake" on the north side of the skear. After a while the gulls stopped mobbing it and it got on with eating its catch.

This shot shows the channel more clearly 

By 18:20, it had removed the guts and flew to the skear with the, now lighter,  fish.
It looks like a decent sized Plaice or Flounder. I hadn't thought yesterday that
the fish might have been partly eaten, that one too could have been a flattie..

This channel is only exposed on the current spring tides, last one probably Saturday. Saturday morning might be worth a look, low water 08:45. Meanwhile, I'll check again tomorrow evening.

Osprey fishing....(actually, fished)

West winds, sunshine and showers.

Seawatch report from Pete:

Watch 0600-0911 with a few  gaps.

Surprisingly poor on sea with just one ‘highlight’ - flock of 60 ad Kittiwake flying in. 

Otherwise:

Two small very distant Scoter flocks

4 Gannet

3 Sandwich tern

4 Grey Seal.  

Some pictures from Janet from her morning stroll

Four-Spotted Chaser - Middleton Nature Reserve 

Common Carpet moth - Middleton Nature Reserve 

Linnet with nesting material on Heysham Head
Not sure what the purple "fungi" is to its left (MD)

Heysham skear - low water 17:20 (MD)

A lot more going on tonight.

Eider 20+

Great Crested grebe 3

Red-breasted Merganser 2

Little Egret 7

Curlew 12

Turnstone 9

Dunlin 1

Sanderling at least 50 - c33 in one feeding group, 9 in another and 8 came in mixed flock with Turnstone.

They are in varying stages of plumage between winter and summer, but all well camouflaged on the skear when they are stationary 

There are 14 on this frame, you may need to open the image to find them all

They are easier to spot when they move, these are part of the group of at least 33 birds

Mixed flock of Sanderling and Turnstone coming in from the south

Osprey 1 - 16:10. If I'd had been a few minutes earlier, I would have probably seen it fishing, as it was I just saw it chased off the skear towards the Stone Jetty. It had a decent size fish, the best I can tell is that it is probably a Lesser-spotted Dogfish. If so it must have been caught in shallow water as these are bottom feeders. It most likely caught it in the shallow "lake" just north of the skear. If so, another chance tomorrow? (It's a similar height tide and conditions forecast to be similar. The trouble with evening feeding opportunities is that it depends on what else has been caught during the day. Plus a fish that size would last me two days! Even so, I'll be checking)

This is just a location shot

A bit more detail on this one

Dogfish have very thick tough skin, not easy to sink talons in to.
On this shot, the Osprey has only hold of one pectoral fin.

The gulls continued chasing it till it was lost from my sight, by that time it was passing quite low over the Stone Jetty.

Pomarine Skua

The fresh breeze oscillated between SSE to SSW. Mainly overcast with some protracted showers.

Seawatch report from Pete (M)

Sea 0603-0803.  Slow but some quality in first hour - 20 mins of second hour in poor vis and rain and zilch seen: 

Pomarine skua - one out 0608 then landed possibly next to another ‘bird spp’ (a dark wing appeared to be raised), then floated in with tide

Arctic Skua 1 dark morph mid range heading in at 0658 

10 Gannet

1 Sandwich Tern

9 Guillemot

c15 Common Scoter

22 Dunlin

1 Swift

Pete Crooks checked a little later:

Heysham North Harbour Wall (8.20 – 10.50 am) – Just about enough interest to persevere given that I’d missed PJM’s early morning Pom and Arctic Skua.

5 Gannet (flying out of the Bay)

7 Common Scoter (flying in, landing on the sea, then continuing into the Bay)

1 Red-throated Diver (flying out)

6 Razorbill (5 + 1 flying out)

29 ‘auk sp’ (5 + 11 + 3 + 10 flying in very distantly)

20 Kittiwake (10 + 5 + 1 + 1 + 3 flying out, mostly distantly)

3 Sanderling (flying out)

4 Sandwich Tern

Not much else today

Whimbrel 1 on Red Nab

Linnet 5 Red Nab + 3 near lighthouse 

Rock Pipit - it was strangely quiet near the lighthouse, just the ringed male silent on the harbour wall. Still no birds seen carrying food.

Even a metal ring is easily seen, if not read.