The Lincolnshire Bird Club

The high spring tide at 0630-0800hrs was very lively and noisy along the southern sector of the reserve this morning from Churchill southwards:

Sandwhich Tern 700+ of which 8-10% were young birds
Arctic Skua 1 intermediate adult. NB with a dark phase bird earlier in the week and 2 light phase birds that JW saw, this makes 4 individuals over the past 4 days
Common Scoter c65 on sea
Great-crested Grebe 1 on sea
Puffin c30 north in a tight flock (feeding party back to Bempton?)
Gannet 5 north
Shelduck 12 north, coming from a long way out (birds returning from moulting grounds?)
Cormorant 3
Sanderling 49
Oyster Catcher 15 south
Black-headed Gull 12
Common Gull 5
Herring Gull 20
Greater B-b Gull 4
Lesser B-b Gull 1

Regards
Cliff

For information your Puffin count is 26 more birds than for the WHOLE of 2011, when only 4 birds were recorded.....

(Also, puffin is still on the list of LBRC species - see http://www.lincsbirdclub.co.uk/lbrc.htm for further details)

_________________
-----------------------------------------------------
Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

Just checking the 2011 LBC database for Puffin, in 2011 there were just 4 records (all unverified by LBRC):

Gib Point - 1 bird South on 6th June 2011
The Wash (on a boat trip) - 1 Juv on 9th Oct 2011
Freiston Shore - 1 bird offshore on 24th Oct 2011
Huttoft Bank - 1 bird offshore on 25th Oct 2011

_________________
-----------------------------------------------------
Andrew Chick
Website: http://www.forktail.co.uk/

Puffins: This is the biggest party I've ever seen and typically, I only pick out 1-2 in a year, so this was very unusual.

Regards
Cliff

i understand that some east coast puffin breeding colonies have been flooded out by the heavy rains , so may this be
displacement ? regards John.