Tuesday 10 October 2017

Passerine migration gives it a miss

Almost unbelievably bad this morning with not a single bird flying over heysham NR which could be deemed a migrant.   Typically this was the one day we could leave nets up from about 0900 to 1600.  This saw the grand total of obvious migrants limited to two Goldcrest and a 'three o clock' Chiffchaff with a small unringed LTT flock.   Amazingly, thanks to the bottomless trickle of unringed Greenfinch, the ringing produced about 20 new birds, or about 2.74 per hour

Outfalls/ocean edge etc two hours pre tide
Little stint - juv with 85 Dunlin and 49 ringed plover
Med gull - two ads but many gulls had left the area
Rock pipit - one by slipway

Insects
At least three migrant hawker