Thursday 18 October 2018

Its back or another has turned up!

Chough Heysham Head 1130ish per Malcolm - Throbshaw Point area, then flew south. We suspect it may be a passage bird, on a day when there have been lots of corvid movement, as its behaviour was atypical of last winter's resident which Malcolm daw virtually daily.  We'll see.

Crystal clear conditions didn't promise very much other than a bit of vis, but a single Yellow-browed Warbler and, perhaps more unusually as obviously not a 'one-off', a flock of three Chiffchaff were caught.  Earlier a Long or Short-eared Owl was chased by three Carrion Crow in semi-darkness east towards the entrance gate.  The owl probably tried to land as it became light in the middle of the tank farm crow roost!  What I could see of it and the fact it obviously disturbed a thorn-bush and caused roost Carrion Crows to pursue it before they would normally have "got up" does suggest a Long-eared looking for a suitable daytime roost just before dawn.  Indeed the Carrion Crows seemed to fly back to bed and didn't start generally making their presence felt again for another 25 mins!

Vis 0730 - 1230
Chaffinch 185
Brambling 3
Jackdaw 175
Carrion Crow 23
Woodpigeon 65
Stock Dove 2
Collared Dove 1
Pink-footed Goose 53
Mistle Thrush 14
Redwing 13
Skylark - 4
Lesser Redpoll 3
alba wagtail 14
Linnet 3
Meadow Pipit - 10

Shore
Wheatear 1
Rock pipit at least 1