Wheatears At Last

You will note that I used the plural Wheatears in my blog title today as I had two male Wheatears this morning at the obs which were my first for the spring. It was another cold morning with a ground frost and a penetrating easterly wind as yesterday.

Birds were on the move as soon as I arrived and I got a phone call from Ian who was at the point to say that huge numbers of Meadow Pipits were moving north further east and he had recorded over a thousand, which is a cracking total. Have a look here later when I have updated the 'obs' blog for the final totals. I had 172 Meadow Pipits, 11 Alba Wagtails, three Siskins, eight Woodpigeons and a Snipe.

Grounded migrants were restricted to the aforementioned Wheatears and nothing else. The sea was quiet too with just three Cormorants, a nice flock of 24 Wigeon, a Great Crested Grebe and two male Eiders. Some Turnstones were feeding on the rocks, but only 46 this morning.

The nice flock of Wigeon, but not a nice photo!

It's still too windy to operate mist nets at the obs, so it will be more birding and recording vis for me in the morning.