Twite, irruptive Long-tailed Tits and late Migrant Hawker

North wall
Twite - at least one was with a very brief visit by 18 finches - the rest looked like Linnet - to the north wall feeder around HT.  These joined the 'core' population of 6 Linnet.
Med Gull - ad fishers roof at the same time
Rock Pipit - one heard near naze area

Office area
Migrant Hawker - one by office early pm

Middleton (thanks Malcolm)
Redwing - 10 on hawthorn
Chiffchaff - two along eastern edge of golf course (one ringed on right leg)

Goldcrest - 4

Gadwall - 7
Moorhen - 9
Teal - 6
Mute Swan 4 + 2 1Y
Mallard - 3
Coot - one

Pink-footed Goose - 8 north
Long-tailed Tit - irruptive flock of 26 landed just once after flying in high from the west before continuing on.  6 similarly south over HNR early pm
NO diving duck

North westerlies

Photo shoots of the heliport seawall roost were the order of the day and the only things of note seen were:

Czech ringed med gull
1cy kittiwake behind iom ferry

Jack snipe tide

Ocean edge saltmarsh
Jack snipe - At least three and possibly four displaced at high tide

Office area
Blackcap - female ringed
Goldcrest - 2 ringed
Robin - 1 ringed
Coal Tit - one ringed
Low single figures of Green and Goldfinch ringed
Starling - 180 S

No proper vis mig counts today and both Middleton and the outfalls area were pronounced dead!

Red admiral - 1 seen

A Hawfinch pays a flying visit

Bird(s) of the day would have been the 5 Whooper Swans that flew south over Heysham NR but a surprise flyby of a Hawfinch at Middleton NR was rather rarer.

Weather: A calm start then becoming NE F3 for a while then calming down again with air from WNW. Cloudy first thing giving way to clear skies and bright sunshine.

Vis at Middleton NR 07:30 - 11:30 - birds heading in a variety of direction, many heading north.
Raven 4
Buzzard 1 east at 10:34
Redwing 3
Chaffinch 15
Brambling 1
Goldfinch 15
Meadow Pipit 12
Lesser Redpoll 5
Siskin 3
Skylark 5
Reed Bunting 2
HAWFINCH 1 NNW

Ringing at MNR
New birds
Redwing 2
Blue Tit 2
Robin 1
Goldcrest 4
Lesser Redpoll 4
Meadow Pipit 1

Retraps - Blackbird 1, Long-tailed Tit 2, Goldcrest 1, Robin 1
Controls (ie birds from elsewhere) - Lesser Redpoll 1

Heysham NR
Vis
Whooper Swan 5 at 08:50 heading south

Ringing
New birds
Robin 1
Goldcrest 3
Blue Tit 1

Retraps - Dunnock 1, Blackcap 1, Goldcrest 1
Controls - Goldcrest 1

Heysham Head - vis
Chaffinch 89
Brambling 5
Siskin 7
Lesser Redpoll 2
Meadow Pipit 28
Blue Tit 3
Golden Plover 1
Skylark 8
Redwing 5
Greenfinch 2
Goldfinch 4

Grounded at
a) Heysham Head and surroundings:
Meadow Pipit 14
Rock Pipit 4
Stonechat - pair
Goldcrest 8
b) the mound at the end of the North Harbour Wall:
Meadow Pipit 5
Linnet 32
Goldfinch 2
Med Gull - Czech veteran on the railings

Heysham skeer
Over 500 Eider in one raft off the skeer.
Also a Great Crested Grebe.

Thanks to the following observers: Andrew Cornall, Joanne Bradley, Malcolm Downham, Dan Haywood, Pete Marsh, John Mason, Jean Roberts.

A tale of two tails - on the left a young (this year's) Lesser Redpoll with pointed tail feathers, on the right an adult Lesser Redpoll with more rounded tail feathers. There are differences in the tertials as well with the adult having clear cut buff edges and the young bird having more diffuse paler edges.

Report by JR

Bits and bobs in the south westerly

This was not an early start and in consequence the only vis mig was the usual late Skylark or two plus a few Pinkfeet.  As usual the wind direction and cloud cover favoured a ringing session by the office and this produced a sprinkling of migrants as well as the expected finches

Grounded
Goldcrest - 4 unringed bird in the net by the office
Blackcap - male ringed by the office
Robin - lightweight bird ringed by office
Dunnock - unusually yet another two unringed birds caught by the office

Vis/inshore
Kingfisher - one OE saltmarsh
Rock Pipit - 1-2 OE saltmarsh
Little Egret - 5
Med Gull - adult
Pink-footed Goose - 60+30 S over bay
Linnet - c20 OE saltmarsh with Twite not ruled out for a separate 5 additional finches.  15 on the north wall seed were all Linnet (apart from 3 goldfinch)
Skylark - 3 SE
Meadow Pipit - at least 6 north wall

Quiet end to a roller coaster month

This month has been all about the Monty Python catchphrase 'now for something completely different' with the weather neither forecastable for more than a day and a half ahead and on many occasions radically changing with pulses of rain and intermittent dry spells racing through, usually but not always with a strong push from the Atlantic.....plus of course the infamous red sun and its Saharan dust and Portuguese forest fire smoke.  It has been a month when close perusal of the rain alarm was essential for any ringing effort and we were only 'caught out' once due to a last minute decision of a large blob of rain to change direction and descend over us from south Cumbria.  As implied, it was often a case of micro-siting - "that shower is going over north Morecambe, that one is going over Pilling" etc and ignoring the previous night's forecasts and trusting the early morning rain alarm

28 ringer/days was a really good ringing effort considering one of us was out of action unless another ringer was present (confined to base with knee rehab) and two of us had very limited availability as the bits of suitable weather were very short notice and usually did not allow forward planning in relation to other commitments.  The other problem was the water level at Middleton knocking some ringing rides out of action, not allowing more than 2/3 nets per ringer as per available sites being too far apart for a single ringer.  It was a month where Jean's regular availability at short notice was crucial to the effort.

It was also a month when the coverage of the recording area was pretty good, with the exception, perhaps ironically, being regular circuits of Heysham NR - a bit beyond the injured knees.  Malcolm put in loads of footwork and Dan and Joanne covered some more obscure spots eg rewarded with the second eastern-type Lesser Whitethroat in the scrub near half moon bay car park

Bird-wise it was just about as good as it gets, given that there were no mornings which "felt rare" with coastal murk and an easterly wind.  We had a decent variety of scarce migrants for a west coast site in "rubbishy weather" and other interest such as late Common and Arctic terns

Ringing totals:  534 new birds were ringed including the following top ten:  136 Goldcrest, 68 Greenfinch, 45 Long-tailed Tit (good numbers moving through), 38 Blue Tit, 31 Coal Tit (reflecting aa decent passage considering weather), 26 Wren, 24 Redwing, 24 Goldfinch, 19 Chiffchaff, 18 Robin (only 2-3 orange breasted grey ones).   More unexpected were:  singles of Firecrest, eastern type Lesser Whitethroat, Brambling (first for ages) and House Sparrow!   Way below par was 8 Blackcap, along with just single figures of Blackbird and Song Thrush.  Note the absence of Yellow-browed Warbler - one spent three days in our usual mist net ride by the office, but on none of those Storm Brian days was a normal ringing session possible other than a single net "just to catch it" which we don't do here.

The most noticeable feature of the ringing (this whole autumn) has been the complete absence of birds ringed elsewhere.   Whilst partly due to the relatively low numbers of Reed Bunting and Lesser Redpoll, it does suggest that the Goldcrests were a product of drifting south from some obscure northern Britain conifer plantation rather than via east coast ringing stations due to an influx across the North Sea.   Yet the Faroes birding blog suggest there were heaps of migrant Goldcrest up there which presumably tried to head south.  However, surely ringing efforts with mist nets were severely curtailed in a lot of places this month c/p the last two Octobers?

Finally today:
Little Egret - 5
Med Gull - ad outfalls, 2CY and 1CY following outbound ferry   



   

Hawfinches and some bog standard seasonal migration

This morning was all about the larger thrushes and a couple of Hawfinch tagging along.  It was also about an "invisible" Greenfinch passage which saw 15 new birds in the mist nets, but nothing on the vis mig the other side of the office!   It was not about unseasonal summer migrants or indeed any warbler registrations to date

Outfalls/offshore
Terns gone
Red-throated Diver - one close inshore off north wall

Grounded/low level vis mig by office
Blackbird - 90 passed through the office area on a NE to SW bush to bush or slightly higher movement
Song Thrush - 10 as above
Dunnock - two unringed birds caught and a third unringed bird leaping around on top of bushes - very late for fidgety ones
House Sparrow - one heard and then presumably the same (female) ringed
Goldcrest - just three unringed birds caught and no evidence of any others
Greenfinch - 15 new birds with no retraps
Coal Tit - two unringed birds caught and another four behaving like migrants
Bullfinch - female headed south and presumably the one ringed

Vis mig by the office to above 1130GMT
Hawfinch - one south vaguely accompanying a large Fieldfare flock at 0900 and another much lower trailing behind two Redwing on HNR and appeared to land in the tank-farm at 1005hrs (no access)
Fieldfare - 243 WSW in 5 flocks
Chaffinch - 54 S but difficult to monitor
Woodpigeon - 25 S
Pink-footed Goose - 521 NORTH, 50 S
Meadow Pipit - 7 SE
alba Wagtail - 2 SE
Mistle Thrush - 1 S
Siskin - 5 S
Lesser Redpoll - 5 S (4 ringed)



 

More rubbishy weather produces the unexpected goods

The strategy today in the cold northerly was to vis mig the high point to hope for Hawfinch and check the mound area and hope for Twite and Snow Bunting.   It didn't really work out like - equally good but more unexpected - with the highlight being the second brown Lesser Whitethroat of the late autumn.  Unfortunately this allowed just a few record shots and was silent throughout.  Surprisingly the tern duo was also still there late afternoon.  Thanks to Dan, Malcolm and Joanne for pics

Grounded
Stonechat - two Heysham Barrows
Rock Pipit - one by near naze
Meadow Pipit - c25 north harbour wall until scattered by vehicle whence half of them flew south west out to sea.  A not unprecedented late flurry of movement
Merlin - female by 1/2 moon bay café late afternoon
Goldcrest - very few with no more than 10 in total despite good coverage
Chiffchaff - one in scrub inland from 1/2 moon bay car park
Lesser Whitethroat - brown one - similar to the one caught the other day, but seemingly more white on T5

Offshore/inshore
Eider - 400 or so
Guillemot - two on the sea
Red-throated Diver - one flew out distantly
Great crested Grebe - one on and two in
Med Gull - adult behind ferry
Kingfisher - one outfalls
Arctic Tern - 1CY outfalls
Common Tern - 1CY outfalls

Vis mig
Meadow Pipit - 15 S
Redwing - 2 S (and 4 grounded in scrub by Heysham HBB car park
Greenfinch - 2
Pied Wagtail - 2
Linnet - 4
Carrion Crow - 20
Chaffinch - 24
Lesser Redpoll - 5
Pink-footed Goose - 3
Woodpigeon - 22
Siskin - 5
Skylark - 9
Rock Pipit - 1
Goldfinch - 7
Starling - 4
Little Egret - 1 north

Red Admiral - 2 S

Miscellany
Cetti's Warbler singing central marsh during a very truncated Middleton visit

1CY Shag new in and terns remain

Here is Dan's audio of the noisy Yellow-browed Warbler around the office last weekend.  Thanks for this

https://soundcloud.com/dans-spring-offensive/heysham-yellow-fever-oct-2017

Here is Malcolm's picture of todays new arrival - a wet 1CY Shag by Heysham one outfall.  Thanks for this:

Outfalls
Common Tern - one 1CY until at least mid-afternoon
Arctic Tern - 1CY at least early am with the above
Med Gull - 2CY Red Nab
Shag - 1CY

Office area
Blackbird - at least 20 - definite influx of continental birds in small gangs
Lesser Redpoll - 1 off passage
Long-tailed Tit - at least 11 unringed and others in flock
Goldcrest - 5+
Blackcap - one male with tit flock
Raven - one on pylon
about 20 each of Green and Goldfinch and low single figures of Chaffinch

Too stratospheric

Incredible contrast between days at the moment, but it was far too clear today.  Unexpectedly two of the terns stuck around until at least lunchtime but the lack of pics in my inbox suggests attempts to photo them this afternoon failed.  Best was another new Cetti's Warbler, plus a different retrap to yesterday, so at least three birds around (and another singing male just to the south of the area at Bowie's Pool.  The Eider went up to an autumnal record 804

North wall
Eider - at least 804 off north wall on the calm sea
Scaup - male and female Kent channel
NO RMB, GCGrebe or Goldeneye!

Vismig
Rock Pipit - 1
Meadow Pipit - 3
Skylark - 3
Linnet - 1
Brambling - 1
Chaffinch - 39
Greenfinch - 5
Siskin - 2
Redpoll sp - 3
Mistle Thrush - 3
Redwing - 55
Jackdaw - 1
Carrion Crow - 24
Sparrowhawk - 1 high heading SW
Pink-footed Goose - 150 + 70 south, well to the east, 300 to west.

Grounded
Goldcrest - 7 new birds and at least 6 others
Coal Tit - 4 new birds but no irruptive behaviour noted
Lesser Redpoll - 3 ringed and at least three more over
Reed Bunting - three ringed
Song Thrush - at least 10 grounded
Blackbird - at least 7 grounded
Chiffchaff - one by 1/2 moon bay café
Rock Pipit - 2 ocean edge foreshore
Redwing - 5 ringed Middleton - at least 2 others down

Outfalls
Arctic Tern - 1CY
Common Tern - the 'gingery' 1CY remained
Med Gull - at least 2 1CY and a 2CY