The highlight this morning at Rossall Point were a male and female Velvet Scoter that Ian picked up drifting east with the tide. There had been 2 birds of Heysham lately and it is likely that these were the same birds. They would drift east on the incoming tide, take off and fly a few hundred metres west and drift back on the tide again.
In fact it would be a morning for wildfowl as Eider numbers were at a respectable 249 accompanied by 9 Red-breasted Mergansers, 18 Common Scoters and a male Scaup was on the sea for a while as well. Vis mig was good with 57 Lesser Redpolls, 8 Tree Pipits, 30 Linnets, 7 Siskins, 7 Goldfinch, 192 Meadow Pipits, Sand Martin and 30 Swallows.
The sea was quiet for Terns with only 14 Sarnies, but numbers of Gannet at 10 were reasonable for this time of year. Red-throated Diver numbers were low at only 2 east and a few auks were around including 6 Guillemots, 2 Razorbills and 12 Auk sp. We do have auk sp. off Rossall, unlike another seawatching location off the Fylde that I could mention! Proper seabirds included 2 Manxies east and both pale and dark morph Arctic Skuas.
The moth trap back home was very predictable with single Hebrew Character and Common Quaker.
We have had a number of Siskins on vis at Rossall this month, but below are a couple of pictures of some Pine Siskins Carduelis pinus sent to me by my good friend Nigel in Canada. In late winter/early spring these birds can be seen coming to niger feeders, not unlike our own Siskin.
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