Fog

When most sensible birders were tucked up in bed dreaming of what the morning might bring, Ian and I were up at 'stupid' o'clock putting nets up at Rossall School. When we arrived at the 'obs' it was misty and we wondered if it might have grounded a migrant or two. The mist looked as though it was going to clear, but when very little was moving over we realised that the mist was probably quite extensive to the south and was blocking any movement. Instead of clearing the breeze picked up from the southeast and blew some fog in, as you can see from the picture below.

Foggy hedgerow

As stated before there was little moving over and all we had on 'vis' was a single Tree Pipit, eleven Meadow Pipits, nine Lesser Redpolls and twelve Goldfinch. With the MP3 player we managed to ring just two Lesser Redpolls.

Lesser Redpoll

Two flocks of 500 and 150 Knot headed south as did eleven Curlew later on in the murk. In Spring there is always a southerly movement of Knot and I assume that these birds are moving to join up with other birds on the Ribble Estuary to feed before heading north to the Arctic.

We did have one grounded migrant in the form of a single Willow Warbler and it would seem that the conditions did bring some birds in as there was a Hoopoe at Heysham BO later in the morning.

Back at home I checked my moth trap to find three Early Greys, ten Hebrew Characters, two Common Quakers, Herald and a Clouded Drab.