More Mipits Than You Can Shake A Stick At

The Meadow Pipit, and early spring vis, floodgates opened this morning with the first decent conditions for some  movement for a few days. At first light at the Obs I had clear skies and it was calm. At 0820 some mist rolled in from the east, which calmed things down for a bit, and this cleared within about half an hour and things picked up again.

My vis totals are nowhere near the numbers that Craig and Ian had at the point. For example they had over 2000 Meadow Pipits through, so keep an eye out HERE in a day or two for the full Obs totals. Between and during net rounds my vis totals included 417 Meadow Pipits, 17 Goldfinches, 34 Siskins, eleven Swallows, two Collared Doves, two Skylarks, eight Alba Wags, three Chaffinches, three Sand Martins, two Woodpigeons, two Sparrowhawks and seven Linnets. This is by far the best vis count at the Obs for the spring so far!

As you would expect on such a clear morning grounded migrants were few and far between and all I had were a male Stonechat, a Goldcrest, three Lesser Redpolls, two Wheatears and two Chiffchaffs.

I ringed eight birds as follows:

Meadow Pipit - 6
Goldfinch - 1
Wren - 1

 Goldfinch

Back home I checked my garden moth trap and there was just one each of Common Quaker and Hebrew Character.

 Common Quaker

Site visits for me tomorrow so it will be weekend before I'm out again.