The Safari went a few miles north to meet up with GB and JH for a mooch along the prom again.
The tide was well down and there were two ferries at anchor waiting for the tide to rise before they could get into Heysham dock, they have a 5.5m (18ft) draught, with our very long lens we couldn't get both of them in frame together.
In front of the ship and stretching to the left is the 'new' shingle island King's Scar which has arisen about a mile offshore since the dredging of our smaller port has stopped. Looks good for nesting sea/shore birds like Ringed Plovers and terns (hopefully to include Little Terns). It isn't totally covered by most high tides now but how much higher can it get? Maybe that's what the ancient village of S(h)ingleton Thorpe was built of that was a good way off the current coastline. The village was lost in a storm in the Middle Ages the residents surviving but becoming refugees and given a plot of land to relocate too, now known as Singleton.
All the while during our walk we were listening to the exhaulting songs of Skylarks, we kept looking up waiting for a photo opportunity. At the same time a flock of about 50 waders was continually disturbed by a multitude of dog walkers as they tried to settle to roost as the tide rose.
Most were Dunlins and Sanderlings with a few Ringed Plovers thrown in for good measure. What a shame, these birds need to conserve their energy for their imminent long migrations to higher latitudes, not waste it every two minutes as yet another dog walker comes along. Maybe they should have headed out to the new island but even that gets over-run by jet-skiers if the sea is calm enough for them to get that far.
As the tide rose they were forced closer to the promenade.
Concentrating on the golf course we did eventually get a pic of a Skylark (YBC #112) both singing and on the ground although the latter was too far away.
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| Surely we'll get better pics than this before 31st December |
There was a wagtail briefly on the mound too, which had a hint of White Wagtail about it but it disappeared over the back before we could get a proper look at it.
One of the reasons we went up that way was to look for Harbour Porpoises seeing ass how the sea was calm enough to spot them. We didn't manage to find any but did see a Grey Seal not too far offshore. We were very surprised to learn that it was the first local lad GB had ever seen here especially seeing as how he more or less grew up on this beach as a nipper - he did say it was far too polluted in those days to support creatures like the porpoises and seals.
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| Our pic but GB's processing |
This morning we were out early with Monty when about 200 Pink Footed Geese flew over on their way to Iceland. When we put them on the website we saw that Young Un AB had seen them over his house some 20 minutes earlier and then probably the same flock was counted at 230 at the coast we were at at the weekend.
This evening we took Monty round the new woodland where we found some Cuckoo Flowers blooming.
There are Oak leaves unfurling all over the place but we only saw one Ash tree with anything like open buds, some had a hint of green showing but most were still fast asleep. A drier summer coming up?
Not much on the sea at Patch 2 today in a time constrained lunchtime watch, just three Shelducks going south and a lone Sandwich Tern until we started trying to count the Cormorants lined up on the dry outer sandbanks. It was then we saw two flying out to sea, one was distinctly smaller and didn't look as black as the other, we'd like to say it was a Shag but it was just too fr away to be positive. In the end we didn't count the rest of the Cormorants.
Where to next? Little chance of doing any safari-ing tomorrow but there's always Friday.
In the meantime let us know been avoiding the limelight in your outback.
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