8th June 2021

  Weather:  SE force 3    sunny and warm

There was a massive cruise ship passing Hilbre distantly first thing, they certainly have the weather for it.

Nevertheless the rarest sighting today was a Squirral on the Middle island before the tide, its further movements are unknown. Following on from yesterday 26 more Canada Geese flew out today. The Eiders were about, the picture shows the damaged wing of the female, we have known about this since last year, but it still seems to be doing ok.

 A Raven flew west early on and a Skylark called overhead, these were the only 'migrants' today. Two Little Terns amongst the few Sandwich and Common was a nice find. The local breeding birds  are still of interest and 7 Linnets (mostly juvenile) were ringed. Pictures below show the short tail and the sheaths of recently grown feathers of young Linnets.

A juvenile Blackbird and a Wren were retrapped and weighed. The Wren was a juvenile when ringed 2 years ago but is now obviously a part of the breeding colony at Hilbre.

A good find was a pale-bellied Brent Goose, possibly the one seen here over 2 weeks ago and subsequently at Red Rocks, it is very late for a Brent !

 The calm sea enabled a Barrel jellyfish to be identified, the largest jellyfish to be found in UK seas.

 photos JE, AS