Sunday 8 May 2016

Big black cloud over the bay at dawn

A rather odd synopsis this morning with calm conditions and a large black cloud over the bay dropping a fair sprinkling of night migrants but doing absolutely nothing for any sea passage and observers had all left by the time the wind kicked in

Grounded
Garden warbler - one ringed and one singing near ocean edge
Spotted flycatcher - 2 ringed and two at the only likely site checked - Heysham head churchyard
Sedge warbler/Whitethroat - low single figures ringed
Reed warbler - two singing male hey nr
Whinchat - FIVE Heysham barrows (thanks Pete)
Wheatear - 3 ocean edge

Sea
Sandwich tern - 2
Arctic tern - 2
Swallow - just 36 N
Lesser Redpoll - 8 north but surprisingly none over the reserve
RB Merganser - 6
Great-crested Grebe - 1

Middleton
10 species of warbler this morning in song with the Garden Warbler still in the golf course corner

Heysham NR
A Siskin flew north

Two Swift lingering over Heysham Head