Sunday 2 May 2010

Masochistic Marsh Harrier

ARCTIC TERN ALERT
From the Lee Evans summary for today (see Links for UK400)
"The Home Counties have had a good day passage-wise with huge numbers of ARCTIC TERNS displaced, several BLACK TERNS, a few LITTLE TERNS and the odd SANDWICH TERN, along with OSPREYS and MARSH HARRIERS". 

For here: Maybe tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday - is tomorrow morning too early - will the wind change direction too soon???

Heysham Obs
The early morning seawatching was rubbish - too northerly, not enough easterly, and too strong.  The late morning seawatching on the incoming tide was no better with one exception

North harbour wall 0630-0930
A great morning for a lie-in with comments from the early morning seawatchers limited to "a few Swift & blogging Sandwich Tern"

North harbour wall 1046-1146
Marsh Harrier - female/imm battling north low over the water surface with an entourage of gulls 1110-1115hrs, seeming to be being forced further towards the centre of the bay.  Why on earth wasnt it migrating over land, unless forced offshore to the south of here by the Middleton IE nesting large gulls?   A dark-chocolate individual with some yellow on the head & leading edge of the wing
Sandwich Tern - 1
Turnstone - c110

Mammals
A large Grey Seal

Elsewhere
Two Dotterel Abbeystead Lane early morning only - not visible lunchtime, but there is 'dead' ground here to conceal birds....public domain updates from this site have been rather thin on the ground this last two days