After Iron Man

I wasn't expecting much this morning with the annual Iron Man competition being on, meaning that all of the roads around the flash were closed 6am-10am and there was much noise and a large number of people. The announcer over the tannoy woke me up at 6am and I imagined that most birds would be gone by the time that I got there at 10:30am. 

I was pleasantly surprised therefore to find that it was actually most of the people that had gone and even better there were four common scoter in the middle of the flash. On the spit there were six common sandpipers and four common terns, and just off the car park a family party of 6 Egyptian geese, an adult and five juveniles.

Bempton Cliffs

Lots of seabird chicks clinging precariously to the cliffs at Bempton today. I love these young kittiwakes.

Ospreys, Foulshaw Moss

We called in at Foulshaw Moss on our way home from Hodbarrow today. At first the views of the ospreys were fairly typical, miles away through the telescope with a heat haze to contend with. Apart from the fact that I could occasionally see a movement it was difficult to be sure that the ospreys were even there. Eventually though one flew from the nest towards us and suddenly there was a call overhead as a third adult flew right over our viewing area. Obviously the adult on the nest had seen it before us and headed over to drive the intruder away. 

Meanwhile a live osprey cam on a wardens phone revealed that there were two chicks in the nest.

Hodbarrow RSPB

Hodbarrow RSPB is at Millom in the South Lakes and is the home to a tern colony which comprises around 400 Sandwich terns plus common and little tern.

The tern colony with Black Combe behind.

Black Combe and a weekend in South Lakes

At 600m Black Combe is the most south westerly hill in the Lake District. It's a nice walk with some great views over the LakeDistrict, the Duddon estuary and to the west the Isle of Man.  Best birds I saw was a family party of whinchats, but there were also a few nice dragonflies, most notably golden-ringed dragonfly and beautiful demoiselle.

Hepatic Cuckoo and a little tern

This morning a little tern flew straight through heading west, two Mediterranean gulls flew in calling and landed on the spit and a rufous (hepatic) female cuckoo flew low over the spit. Other birds included two little egrets and three common terns.

Lesser scaup, Ringley Fold waste water treatment works

It's been a good year for lesser scaup and this was my fourth so far. Ringley Fold WWT is near Clifton in Greater Manchester and the bird was briefly on Elton Reservoir last week.

Movement at the Flash

A common sandpiper was at the boat club this morning following two on the spit last Sunday. Are these late spring migrants or early autumn migrants? Also this week, two drake common scoter yesterday.

Marsh harrier, Dairy Farm Road

I had a great walk along Dairy Farm Road at Rainford this afternoon, with at least three yellow wagtails carrying food back to their nests and a male marsh harrier flew over and headed north. At least eight brown hares in the fields and three oystercatchers.

Autumn migration is now underway!

Autumn return migration began at the Flash on Sunday with the arrival of a juvenile ringed plover. This must be a British bred bird because tundra ringed plovers are barely on their breeding grounds yet. Unlike their northern cousins, British ringed plovers moult quite quickly into 1st winter plumage, but this bird still has the pale edges to the scapulars which indicate that it is still in juvenile plumage, so potentially this may be a local breeder. Interestingly on the day that this bird arrived, a friend had another two juveniles on the outfall at Carr Mill Dam, St Helens. I hope that you enjoyed your summer everybody. Winter draws on!

1st sum arctic tern, Pennington Flash

A first summer arctic tern was at Pennington Flash this morning, with four common terns. This is a plumage which I rarely see since juvenile arctic terns usually head south to the southern hemisphere for their first winter and don't return until they are adults. At one time it was considered so unusual that they were thought to be a separate species and were given the scientific name Sterna portlandica but in reality they're not really that uncommon. The photo above is of a 1st summer arctic tern which I saw at the arctic tern colony at Long Nanny last week.

Also at the flash today a juvenile ringed plover on the spit and 1100+ swifts.

 

Bridled tern and Coquet Island

The arrival of a bridled tern on Coquet Island, Northumberland last weekend convinced me that it was time to pay a long overdue visit to one of my favourite counties. In truth the bridled tern was just an excuse, the real reason I wanted to go was to see the adult American black tern at nearby Long Nanny, a bird which I had long wanted to see but had never got round to. Add to that the opportunity to visit Coquet Island for the first time and it was what they call a no-brainer.

I booked onto a boat trip at 1pm from Amble with Puffin Cruises. They had a good record of seeing the bridled tern, yesterday for example they saw it on every trip, but I was aware that it was a scheduled tourist boat with less than 45 minutes spent around the island. Moreover seeing the bridled tern was probably not the priority of the skipper or most of the tourists on the boat, who not unreasonably were likely to be more interested in puffins and seals rather than a distant bird they'd never heard of, which without binoculars they'd struggle to even see.

So for insurance purposes I headed first to the top of a dune just south of Amble and viewed the island through the scope at a distance of about 1.5km. Fortunately there was another birder there and he had located the tern. It was sitting in its favourite spot on top of the island just right of the solar panels. There was a bit of heat haze, but when cloud came over the haze lifted slightly and I could just about make it out as a bridled tern. Finally it flew and it was a lot clearer view and easily identifiable.....and relax. Now I could go on the boat trip and enjoy the spectacle of the seabird colony, hoping for better views of the star attraction of course, but no pressure even if I didn't see it.

American black tern, Long Nanny

There's been an American black tern summering at the little tern and arctic tern colony at Long Nanny, Northumberland since May 2020. For the first year it was thought to be a 'European' black tern but when it returned to the colony in the summer of 2021, analysis of the photos resulted in the bird being re-identified as American black. At the time of it's arrival in 2020 it was just the eighth record for the UK and the first ever in breeding plumage. I have a particular interest in this subspecies having found the sixth for the UK at Eccleston Mere, Merseyside in 2012 and I also saw the seventh at Dungeness in 2018, but both these birds were juveniles. 

The Long Nanny adult has been on my radar for years but it's a long way to travel just for a plumage tick and despite an array of rarities in that area over the period, I've never got round to going. This week however, I was sort of 'in the area' and with plenty of time on my hands I had the opportunity to go. Even so, it took the appearance of a bridled tern on nearby Coquet Island to finally convince me. 

I'm so glad that I went to see this bird, it was the highlight of the day, eclipsing even the bridled tern. Remarkably this year for the first time it's paired up with a male arctic tern and is sitting on two eggs.

It's just possible that the American black tern didn't actually lay these eggs and that she's acting as a surrogate mother, sitting on eggs laid by a now deceased female arctic tern. This kind of thing does happen, I remember last year watching a ring-billed gull in Scotland incubating common gull eggs, much to the consternation of BOTH parents! However, in the case of these terns, the American black has been seen mating with the male arctic and a warden who has seen the nest close up apparently reported back that the eggs look a little smaller than typical arctic tern eggs. We'll have to wait and see, but the mind boggles when considering what the resultant offspring might look like, assuming that the eggs are viable and that the young can survive to adulthood. 

I can think of a few reasons why these young might not survive, whether hybrid or not. For example, arctic terns feed mainly on fish such as sand eels, which they catch by diving into the sea. The adults bring them back to the nest to feed the chicks. Marsh terns such as American black feed mainly on insects which they usually pick off the surface of the water or in flight. Occasionally marsh terns will catch fish and I have seen photos of this bird carrying sand eels, but can they or will they catch enough to satisfy a hungry hybrid / arctic tern chick? I don't know and I suspect that nobody does, but it all adds to the uncertainty surrounding the survival prospects of the chicks. 

In the photo above you can see that the arctic tern has brought the female a sand eel, presumably as a courtship gift because the eggs haven't hatched yet and this was a nest change over. The American black tern was about to flyoff to feed.

Arctic terns, Long Nanny

The arctic tern colony at Long Nanny is a very impressive place, with around 1600 pairs nesting, along with a few little terns. The wardens hut has a small viewing platform with about 50 pairs almost within touching distance. Fortunately the recent over summering American black tern has chosen this part of the colony in which to settle, making it very easy to see.