Something smells a bit fishy

Calm to begin with then a light SW breeze for the rest of the day, easing again by late evening. Plenty of sunny spells.

Heysham skear (Malcolm) 07:45 - 10:00

We are back to spring tides now so I went out to see how the middle skear fared through storm Floris. 

This is the area between the inner and middle skear that was covered in
loose mussels on Thursday. Some of the mussels have managed to clump
together, but much of the area is just mud, and still surprisingly soft!

Further out on the skear has also been transformed. Here some of the 
mussel beds have been undermined and the mussels washed away. But 
some of the mussel beds have just been covered with the resulting mud

It was heavy going. I am less than half way across to the more consolidated 
north side here. The stench of decay was everywhere, clearly the buried mussels
were covered in mud too deeply for them to escape and were already decomposing.

By the time I reached the north side, the tide was coming in quickly. In these calm conditions it is easy to see the effect of the tide. This is not a particularly high tide at 8.8m.

Eider 9 female type and this crèche of 23 

Red-breasted Merganser 1 female type

Red-breasted Merganser 

Great Crested grebe 11 - all adults moulting from summer plumage 

Great Crested Grebe 

Shag 1 juvenile 

Juvenile Shag looking pale in the low morning sunlight 

Cormorants 7

Cormorants on a honeycomb worm reef on the south side.
Neither the south or north sides reefs were noticeably affected by the storm

Grey Heron 2

Little Egret 12

Six of the Egrets

Oystercatcher 400, but many more on the shore on both sides of the skear 

Curlew 60

Whimbrel 1 heard only

Redshank 150

Turnstone 130

Ringed Plover 17 (12 close inshore plus 5 on the middle skear)

Dunlin 4

Redshank

Ringed Plover and Dunlin

Gulls 250 mainly Herring scattered around the skear. Plus a number had decided to rest on the mud to the north of the skear, perhaps they didn't like the smell of rotting food.

Gulls on the north shore 

I thought when I saw them that they would make a good early warning if anything passed over from the north, and sure enough just as was heading off, they all lifted and in their wake...

Osprey 1 heading south.

Osprey

Swallow 1 south

South shore 

Shaun Coyle 10:30-12:00:

Little Gull 2cy on number 1outfall then roosting on Red Nab. 

Mediterranean Gull 2 adults & 7 juvenile also on number 1.

Little Egret 5.

Turnstone 23 roosting on the Wooden Pier. 

Rock Pipits pair on Red Nab.

Janet checked later

One of the Red Nab Rock Pipits

Cormorants on the wooden jetty

By late evening there were gulls and Swallows anting all over the recording area

Mainly Meds today

Dry for most of the day, although it looked like rain all morning. An afternoon shower, then sunny spells. A light SW wind.

South shore

I checked in the morning (Malcolm)

Rock Pipit 3 on Red Nab

Little Egret 6

Feeding on the outfalls is very patchy at the moment, most of the time there are almost no gulls on them.

No.1 outfall with hardly any gulls

Then a shoal of Whitebait or Sandeels must get drawn in at the intake and suddenly every Black-Headed gull around is feeding. This is the same outfall a few minutes earlier 

Mediterranean gulls 21 at least 13 adults 2 x 2nd calendar year, 6 juveniles. There were 6 juveniles feeding on the seaward end of No.1 outfall. Other sightings could have been the same birds

All but 2 of the adults were on the beach by the wooden jetty, and weren't tempted by the outfall when it was providing.

Of the six Meds in this shot, two have white rings and one just a metal ring.
Both seen earlier this summer, the green ringed German bird was also present.

It isn't often that the ring is so easy to read

Janet check this afternoon and caught the only serious shower of the day!

One of the Red Nab Rock Pipits

Redshank

Oystercatcher 

Curlew

Cormorants on the wooden jetty, no sign of the Shag.
One Cormorant that rests on the jetty has an orange ring. It should
be readable with a good scope

The sun came out on the return leg - in the Nature Park:

Painted Lady

Red Admiral 

Snail sp, giving the blackberries an appetising shine!

Gannet provides a bit of variety

 A dry day with sunny spells. The west wind drifting to SW by evening 

South shore (Malcolm)

Two checks today this morning 09:00 - 10:30

Linnet 5 on the saltmarsh 2 on Red Nab

Rock Pipit 3 (1 + 2 on Red Nab)

Little Egret 3

Mediterranean gulls 2 adults on Red Nab, including the green ringed German bird. At least 2 Juveniles flying around and feeding on the outfalls.

Juvenile Mediterranean gull with a juvenile Herring Gull. The green ringed
Herring gull has been around for a week (N:14P). One of the NW gull project
birds. But this year's ringing data hasn't been added to their database yet

Juvenile Mediterranean gull flying past the wooden jetty

Black-Headed gull with a small fish on No.2 outfall

Turnstone 20

Turnstone 

Gannet 1 adult flew out 09:40

Gannet

This afternoon 14:30 - 16:0

I went along the sea wall to watch the beach by the wooden jetty become exposed. Things were looking promising, there were at least 9 Mediterranean gulls on the sea, also waiting for the beach to show. Then everything lifted!

Osprey 1 - it looked to be just passing through, it flew past the roundhead and headed in a straight line SE, it didn't even look at the feeding area.

Osprey

Mediterranean gulls 16 - 9 adults and a 2nd calendar year returned to feed on the beach, no ringed birds seen. A loose group of 6 adults flew north. So with this morning's 2 juveniles at least 18 Meds today.

This Med looks to have a worm, but it is just part of the Sandmason
worm's tube

This adult didn't take kindly to a 2cy that landed on its patch

Little gull a 2nd calendar year feeding at the seaward end of No.1 outfall briefly 

Peregrine Falcon 1 flying around the Power Stations

In the Nature Park

One of two male Common Darters

Butterflies:

Red Admiral 5

Large White 4

Meadow Brown 2

Gatekeeper 2

Common Blue 8

Speckled Wood 3

Gatekeeper 

Red Admiral 

Storm Floris had more impact than it seemed!

Showers till mid morning, then increasingly bright. The early SE wind switching to SW by lunchtime.

South shore (Malcolm)

A quick morning check from saltmarsh to Red Nab was wet and underwhelming!

Just 3 Linnet on the saltmarsh 

Rock pipit 1

Whimbrel 1

No Mediterranean gulls seen on Red Nab

Later Janet checked the Nature Park 

Southern Hawker

Red Admiral, Carder Bumblebee and an Aphid 

Heysham skear (Malcolm)14:00 -16:00 

Great Crested Grebe 2

Little Egret 7

Gulls 300, mainly Herring  - I had just got to my favourite spot to check the gulls for rings and anything more unusual (hoping for a Caspian!), when everything lifted.

Just a fraction of the lifted birds

I quickly scanned for a raptor, but the culprit was someone kitesurfing. The birds all settled again, just to be spooked by a return pass. After several repeats I was about to call it a day, but the kitesurfer finished before me and tranquility returned.

Two of the gulls were colour coded, but both seen before and both from Walney.

In recent weeks I have been avoiding the skear edges, particularly the south side. As the summer progresses a process called layering occurs as mud is deposited on top of the mussels on one tide and the mussels move higher up to compensate, then the process repeats. The mussels prevent the mud from being washed away and the mussel bed grows in height. This makes for difficult walking as the mud below the mussels is unconsolidated and very soft. This process is most pronounced along the skear edges where some of the beds were 0.5m high - but not any more!

When I said the mussels prevent the mud from washing away, that referred to
normal summer conditions. Storm Floris has flattened them! All these mussels
are alive, but no longer anchored to anything and most will wash away

These are some of the mussels, I have seen the gulls swallow them at
this size, but for some reason they weren't interested in the loose easy pickings 

This is the south side, all this as far as the rock just left of centre in the
background was mussel beds last week

The gulls persisted in prising out individual mussels to eat. Presumably their
instinct or just experience tells them that this is the way to feed on mussels

The north side too has lost a 50m strip of mussel beds

This is one of the ringed birds feeding along the new northern edge 
of the skear

Some of the now loose mussels will aggregate and bind to each other, but most have already been washed out to sea. This short clip shows gentle drainage as the tide ebbs, but even this was moving the smaller remaining mussels.

Oystercatcher 600

Curlew 60

Redshank 140

Turnstone 120

Curlew 

Turnstone

Redshank 

An evening check along the south wall - Anne Stupple

Little Gull 1 2cy near No.1 outfall

Shag 1 juvenile on the wooden jetty