Saturday 7 May 2016

Before the Spot Flys

I was out early this morning and sadly before what seems to be an almost mass arrival of Spotted Flycatchers. I did my usual walk around part of the Obs recording area and was greeted with full cloud cover and a 5 - 10 mph east-southeasterly wind at first light.

It's been a few days since I walked this part of the Obs so it was difficult to differentiate between what were genuine grounded migrants from this morning and what were birds that had arrived a few days ago and were holding territory. I will be able to tell tomorrow as I'm going to walk this same patch again. Anyway for arguments sake lets call them all grounded and I had four Whitethroats, ten Sedge Warblers, a Willow Warbler, a Lesser Whitethroat, a Lapwing and a Garden Warbler.

The main feature of the vis was Swallows and Lesser Redpolls and my totals included 41 Swallows, 13 Lesser Redpolls, a Siskin, a Tree Pipit, a Tree Sparrow, a White Wagtail, a House Martin and an Alba Wag.

The sea was quiet too with just 21 Common Scoters, an Arctic Tern, two Cormorants, a Sandwich Tern and two Gannets.

Afterwards I had a look at the pools to see if the water level had dropped sufficiently for us to get in there ringing, but it hadn't. There were three singing Reed Warblers, four Sedge Warblers and a Cetti's Warbler. Three pairs of Coots had young with broods of three, two and three. Two Great Crested Grebes and three White Wagtails and that was your lot!

 Coot

Back home I checked my moth trap and there were just singles of Herald, Hebrew Character and Shuttle-shaped Dart.

Herald

It's remaining southeasterly tomorrow with some rain overnight so it might drop a few bits and pieces in; I'll let you know!

There was plenty of Thrift in flower this morning.

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