Saturday 17 April 2010

All Quiet On The Western Coast

It was a 5.30 a.m. start for Craig, Ian and I at Rossall School this morning and we were hoping for a repeat of last weekends Redpoll 'fest'. We put the 'Redpoll net' up and on went the MP3 player and we crossed our fingers for a good passage. It was soon very obvious that it was quiet. In fact Ian said that it had been quiet all week on the 'vis' front, probably as a result of the high pressure we've had all week clearing everything out. We've also had some 'blocking' northeasterly winds that will have held birds up.

We had thirty Redpolls north and we managed to pull in four 'Lessers' with the MP3 player. Other vis included eight Meadow Pipits, five Goldfinch, two Siskins, nine Swallows and two Tree Pipits.

Lesser Redpoll

In addition to the Lesser Redpolls we ringed a single Blackbird, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff. The Chiffchaff was showing 'pollen horns' at the base of its bill from foraging on nectar during migration.

Chiffchaff - note the 'pollen horns' at the base of the
bill


Willow Warbler

The only grounded migrants in addition to the two phylloscs trapped were two male Wheatears towards the sea wall.

Back at home in the moth trap were Common Plume Moth, six early Greys, four Hebrew Characters, Herald and Common Quaker.

Herald

3 comments:

Lancs and Lakes Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Quite a different tally to mine Seamus despite us being out at the same time only a couple of miles apart! Think I'm going to have to get some loud speakers attached to my hat!
Our moth trap will have its 2010 debut tonight

Cheers

Dave

The Hairy Birder said...

Good luck with the moth trap.

Cheers,

Seumus

Pete Marsh said...

I think you were lucky. The previous two mornings were completely dead over Heysham (no birds caught) & this morning did at least have some signs of overhead life, but I took the marginally wrong decision not to set nets. Moths a bit better!

Pete