No Two Days The Same

Yesterday Ian and I split up and 'worked' different areas of the obs to try and increase the number of birds ringed. It's a good job we did as neither of us caught very well! At first light I was greeted with full cloud cover with a light southwesterly wind. The weather had been the same throughout the night and was responsible for a lack of grounded birds and very little vis.

The only vis I had was in the form of 12 Meadow Pipits, 31 Swallows, an Alba Wagtail, three Grey Wagtails and five House Martins. I had no grounded migrants and only ringed three Wrens and 2 Greenfinch.

 Greenfinch

What a difference this morning as the conditions were perfect for a scattering of grounded migrants and classic for some good early autumn visible migration. The wind was southeasterly, perhaps 15 mph, and horizontal visibility was a touch murky.

I always start off by looking through the Gulls that feed on a field close to where I park my car and amongst the 83 Black-headed Gulls, five Herring Gulls, six Lesser black-backed Gulls and four Common Gulls was an adult Med. Gull.

The vis started almost straight away and was all southerly in direction. In total I had 12 Goldfinch, 12 Grey Wagtails, 126 Meadow Pipits, 15 Alba Wags, 175 Swallows, 30 House Martins, two Siskins, a Reed Bunting and a Redpoll sp.

Four Kestrels were hunting the farm fields and I saw one successfully catch a vole. I am assuming these are the birds that we ringed from a nest box in this locality.

Grounded migrants consisted of 10 Wheatears, a Goldcrest and a Willow Warbler. The sea was fairly quiet but I did have my first Pink-footed Geese of the Autumn with 70 heading south into Liverpool Bay. Another autumnal first for me were two summer plumaged Red-throated Divers heading south. In addition to this the sea produced 410 Knot, 12 Gannets, two Auk sp., three Common Scoters, a Grey Plover and a Shelduck.

The forecast for the coming week is for it to be unsettled with westerlies. It is going to be windy, but whether it will be windy enough for a good count of Leach's Petrels I'm not sure.