Picked up the first Guillemot yesterday afternoon at the south end of Ainsdale beach - caked in thick oil, but still commendably feisty.
Took it to Parker and Crowthers vets in Hillside who were happy to take it in and try and clean it up, then I returned to the beach, where Coast and Countryside colleagues had found a line of thick oil globules stretching about 150 metres on the tideline up towards the Green Beach.
We scraped and scooped it up till way past dark, and this morning I was back on the beach again by 7am - in the early predawn drizzle oiled Common Scoter, Guillemot, Sanderling and BHG all appeared in the glare of my headlights, before it got bright enough for us to survey how much more oil had come ashore in better light after 8am.
Answer: 0.7miles of tideline contained globules at the south end of Ainsdale beach, 0.1miles had it directly off Shore Road, and a further 0.8miles were affected from the Green Beach north.
Coast and Countryside staff spent all day taking it off the beach.
Most of the globules were about an inch across or smaller, but a film of evaporating oil has pooled in many channels and areas of the tideline too.
Understand up to 40 oiled gulls were on the Sands Lake today, but if you see an oiled bird on the coast, please let Coast and Countryside know on 0151 934 2967.
As for yesterday's Guillemot, Parker and Crowthers did a sterling job and I picked it up this evening, fed it, and released it into the surf on the 8pm tide - it shot off like a rocket into the night - hopefully it'll make it.
Sadly as I released one cleaned bird, I came across the Great Crested Grebe pictured at the top of the posting at about 8.30pm.
Lightly oiled, but mightily pissed off, I managed to catch it, clean it and roost the bird in the shed at Dempsey Towers tonight, prior to another visit to the vets in the morning.
As long as Mrs D doesn't pop down to get her pushbike for an early doors cycle, all should be well.
I bet an angry grebe will be the last thing she'd expect to find in there.
Checking the beach pre-dawn onwards again tomorrow - if we're lucky I won't have more tales of oiled bird woe.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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22/12: Oiled birds on Ainsdale beach today (altho' four of the BHGs were off Weld Rd) included:
Common Scoter 3
Sanderling 15
BHG 19
Herring Gull 1
LBB 1
Guillemot 1
Carrion Crow 1
Last night's winds seem to have broken the oil globules up, so we didn't find any new amounts of that today, but a nasty film still remains in several areas of the beach.
One oiled Guillemot taken to the vets today, plus one oiled Common Scoter and one oiled Sanderling seen on the beach at Ainsdale.