Saturday 29 December 2007

Short-lived seabird weather

Heysham Obs
Two lots of 30 mins seawatching; lunchtime and mid-afternoon. The latter half-hour, despite more promising conditions, produced zilch. No ferry at lunchtime to spice things up

Heysham North harbour wall/offshore
Kittiwake: 24 - 16 floating in on the water and 6+1+1 'in'
Little Gull: Ad gradually being blown into the bay
Red-throated Diver - one 'out'

No Meds or Purp Sands seen

Middleton IE
Teal 60, Goldeneye 5, Tufted Duck 4, Pochard 1, Mute Swan 2 but only 4 Coot have returned post-freeze & no Little Grebe

Elsewhere

Pale-bellied Brent Goose still at the Sunny Slopes groyne with 16 Reed Bunting nearby on the Regent Road groyne. Nothing of interest on Pine Lake. Two Greenshank and Spotted Redshank in the Conder area. Lots of wildfowl again on the Warton floods - surely a case here for a HLS scheme to retain these as wet meadows?