Friday 29 May 2015

At last!

Heysham Obs
A very short seawatch - indeed the first scan - revealed a pair of Common Scoter heading into the Bay.  There did not seem to be much prospect of anything else so the seawatch lasted 5 minutes!

North wall 0930ish-0935
Common Scoter - pair in
Great Black-backed Gull - to add to yesterdays census - pair nesting Fisher's roof
Lesser Black-backed Gull - two young Fisher's roof - at least 2-3 days old

Ocean Edge/outfalls
Starling - one carrying food into power station SW corner (very few nesting attempts recorded EDF site)
Wheatear - female on grass - big one
Red Nab consisted of 5 in yellow high vis, two in orange high vis, one in donkey jacket and one in anorak examining the culvert and not a lot of roosting gulls etc. but most of the displaced birds were in view from Ocean Edge
Oystercatcher - 420
Curlew - 32
Shelduck - 2
Common Gull - 178

Insects
Some okish weather by recent standards this afternoon - cold but sunny!
The trap held a single Ingrailed Clay but the new bulb is now in - these 160 blendeds seem to lose the MV element over time and the old, bulb was getting very yellow

Justine had the second Grapholita lunulana for Middleton

Janet had 5 x Burnet Companion on Heysham NR plateau and the following pics:






Thursday 28th May

Heysham Obs
Roof nesting gull census today comprising buildings on
a) the power station non-operational land  (LB 14 nests, GB 1 nest)
b) Fisher's Roof and adjacent building at the harbour (LB 82 nests, HG 35 nests),
c) Centrica building along the North Harbour Wall (LB 15 nests, HG 7 nests),
d) Ocean Edge caravan park reception building (LB 10 nests, HG 1 nest) and
e) Middleton industrial estate (LB 41 nests, HG 17 nests)

Therefore a total of 163 Lesser Black-backed Gull nests, 60 Herring Gull nests and 1 Great Black-backed Gull nest. 

There were probably more nests on the Centrica building but it was difficult to see the rooftops properly.

Gannet - two far offshore

Common Gull - 194 outfalls