Monday 4 April 2016

Which Way's North?

It was another good morning for vis yesterday morning at the Obs. At first light I was in the cemetery looking for grounded migrants under full cloud cover with a light southeasterly wind. The only grounded migrants i had were six Goldcrests and two Chiffchaffs.

I could see that there was some vis going over and decided to join Craig and Ian on top of the dunes. Horizontal visibility was fairly poor and you couldn't see across the bay for example and this was causing some confusion amongst the migrating birds. They going over exceedingly high and some flew round a little before powering off northeast.

Our vis totals were 1,110 Meadow Pipits, two Lesser Redpolls, 19 Linnets, 15 Alba Wags, 30 Goldfinches, a Kestrel, three Chaffinches, a White Wagtail, three Swallows, 16 Sand Martins, eight Woodpigeons, ten Carrion Crows, five Magpies, a Twite and a very early Yellow Wagtail.

Due to the general murkiness the sea was quiet with just 99 Common Scoters, twelve Red-breasted Mergansers, three Eiders, six gannets, and two Red-throated Divers. In addition to the grounded migrants in the cemetery I had five Wheatears in the dunes as well.

All in all not a bad few hours birding.

 

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