The perfect migratory landbird recipe providing the alarm works!

In the earlier years, 18th April was on more than one occasion THE favoured major spring migration morning, dominated by Willow Warblers.  Recent years have seen some not very helpful weather at this time, but this morning was pretty good with a lot of offshore murk.  However it needed an early start and the alarm failed; fortunately I managed to wake up at 0520 and realise what was happening, but there was still a 16 or so mile journey via picking up Jean before we could set nets/observe vis mig etc.   On arrival, it was apparent that significant numbers of Willow Warbler were racing through, giving bits of song and the odd hu-eet before heading north-east and inland.

Although the ringing totals were minus about 30 Willow warbler and almost certainly a Redstart, missed during the civil twilight to sunrise mist net round, a reasonable catch of just over 30 birds was made, before it went quiet with the sun blazing on two of the four nets [New birds:  22 Willow Warbler, 5 Chiffchaff, 2 Blackcap, one each of Lesser Whitethroat and Pied Flycatcher].  This is the first year here since 1980 that more than 50 Chiffchaff have been ringed in spring and we have a bit to go yet.

Most unexpected was a heavy Meadow Pipit passage for this time of year - not known this before so late into April so have the easterlies pushed Scandinavian-bound birds over to this side or are we still filling territories in the Highlands of Scotland?  

Vis mig/big sit by the office, minus an hour or so seawatching/coastal coverage produced:
Ring Ouzel - female chased into gorse by a male Blackbird
Redstart - male early on
Pied Flycatcher - female ringed

Tree Pipit - 4 NE
Lesser Whitethroat - three migrants
Grasshopper Warbler - probably two different singing males with an hour between song periods and unlikely backtracking from the general north-easterly progress if it involved just the one bird
Blackcap - two singing males passed through - this species has been in rather low numbers so far this spring
Chiffchaff - at least 8 migrants, one with pollen

Willow Warbler - at least 75 passed through by the office and probably many others over the rest of the recording area
Osprey - a very high northbound bird was almost missed!
alba Wagtail - 4 NE
Meadow Pipit - 249 NE
Siskin - 2 NE
Redpoll - 5 NE
Swallow - 26 NE
Sand Martin - 2 NE
House Martin - 1
Linnet - 24 NE
Sparrowhawk - one probable migrant
(51 species in total)

Sea coverage - not a lot of time spent - quite murky
Arctic Skua - blogging dark morph
Sandwich tern - 13 out, none lingering today
Wheatear - 10

Rock pipit 2 near lighthouse, but also crossing to north wall roundhead.

Additions to Middleton Nature reserve
Coot 1 - "no swimming" pond
Grelag geese 2 Tim Butler pond

Bits

Coverage was a bit patchy today with the impression that early stuff could easily have been missed on the sea

Redstart - Male ringed Heysham Nr
Whimbrel - one North wall
Sandwich Tern - 6
Swallow - 14
Arctic Tern - 2
11 new phylloscs ringed plus one Chiffchaff ringed elsewhere (KLA)
Meadow Pipit - 25 N
Linnet - 6 N
Little Gull - adult blogging early am

Middleton NR
Cetti’s warbler - 5 singing males
Raven - 1
Snipe - 1
Teal - 2

Harbour area - 18:30 - 19:30
Steady swallow passage, minimum total 50
Guillemot near waterfall
White wagtail, one, probably two.
Two "active" Rock pipit near lighthouse

Grounded migrant morning

Nice bit of murk this morning produced a mainly Phyllosc-based arrival.  Exceptions were singing Grasshopper and Sedge Warblers at Middleton NR and two Lesser Whitethroat at Heysham, one of which was ringed

Migrants
Willow Warbler - 50 plus
Chiffchaff - 15 plus
Sedge Warbler - 1 (IOY)
Grasshopper Warbler - 1 (IOY)

Lesser Whitethroat - 2 (IOY)
Blackcap - at least two new migrants
Swallow - 18 north
Meadow Pipit - 22 north
Tree Pipit - 1 north
Wheatear 9
Sandwich Tern - minimum 29 on buoys north and south of harbour and Red Nab

No sign of 2CY Med nor any sea passage

Brief Avocet stopover

So nearly overlooked three early morning Avocet as they flew in with a small gang of Oystercatcher before feeding on the incoming tideline along Ocean Edge, then heading north

A Collared Dove flying in off was first spotted head on about a mile out in orange silhouetting light and was initially a head scratcher!

Two Arctic Tern (Ioy) prompted a 1.5hr seawatch with virtually nothing else

Sandwich Tern - one in then 45 appeared on red nab and shore after HT
Med Gull - 2cy outfalls late pm
Wheatear 14

Another trickle day

The 'star' of the show today was House Martin with the solitary vis mig 'landbird' seen during a 40 minute seawatch was one of these and a further 7 or so were seen at Middleton NR along with a couple of Swallow

Migratory sightings
House Martin - 8
Swallow - 4
Meadow Pipit - 6
Goldfinch - 4 high to NE
Red-throated Diver - three in summer plumage floating out on the tide
A couple of Willow Warbler and a single Chiffchaff in the nets at Heysham NR
No redpoll this am

Others at Middleton
Cetti's Warbler - four separate singing males this am on Middleton
Mute Swan - 3 pairs sitting
Gadwall - 4
Teal - 3 still lingering
Little Grebe - two NS pond, one TB pond


 

The wait continues

Northbound migration:
Lesser Redpoll 8
Meadow pipit 7
Wheatear 1

On sea
Common Scoter 4 - blogging
Red-throated diver 2, plus the bird feeding inshore
Sandwich tern 2
Shag, flying to north side 11:30

Guillemot still feeding in harbour
Rock pipit near wooden jetty

Thanks for swallow picture Janet.

Clearer and fewer

Ringing this morning saw five Lesser Redpoll and five warblers (three CC, WW & BC) as the conditions were clearer than yesterday and the wind fractionally more east with very little south in it.  The current synopsis is on a nightly knife-edge between blocking and producing the goods, with things like cloud cover and offshore visibility as well as how much north in the easterly being key factors as well as what's going on down south, including over France

Low tide channel
Red-throated Diver - 1
Great-crested Grebe - just 8
2CY Med on outfalls with c280 Common Gull

Middleton Nature Reserve
Sand Martin 16 north, mid morning. Biggest group 6
Swallow 4 north
Warblers singing:
Cetti's 2
Blackcap 9
Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff
Little grebe - at least one on "no swimming" pond
Gadwall 4
Teal 2
Buzzard 1 - drifting south

Heliport seawall Knot have been a distraction with the latest spring tide sessions in the failure category due to bits of disturbance at bad times and arriving too late on a key day

Rose sent me the Ed Keeble method as applied to the heliport roost a couple of days ago and her estimate fits very well with the easier counts of birds spread over the feeding areas off Heysham Head.  Thanks for this.

50 knot counted and marked in red box, each with a dot.

10 boxes indicates 500 knot. 
I think there are about 80-100 of these boxes.  I made copies of the 10 boxes till they roughly filled the area. 
So conservatively 4000-5000.

Caveats: 1) knot appear larger on the left and bottom, and smaller on the right and top, so box size might be incorrect, 2) relies that all the knot can be observed in the red box e.g. none hidden.

Migration more interesting

North of Heysham Head - low water

Great Crested Grebe 16

Red-throated diver 1 - this bird is regularly feeding close in, between green marker and skeer. It has something orange attached, probably nylon line.

Shag 1 x 3cy

Knot 4,100

Nothing moving over sea in 40 minute watch.

Heysham Nature Reserve

Migration included:

Redstart 1 male north 07:50

Willow Warbler 15+

Chiffchaff 5+

Lesser Redpoll 3

Meadow pipit 7

Blackcap 2

Linnet 10

South shore mid afternoon

Guillemot 1. This bird has soiled belly feathers, but seems to be managing to feed sucessfully, usually near waterfall in harbour 

This picture was actually taken on Tuesday, but same bird still there today.

Rock pipit, just one feeding near lighthouse.

White wagtail. 1 male near lighthouse

Wheatear 1 - Ocean Edge foreshore

Redstart 1 male near pond before Red Nab 15:35

This is the afternoon Redstart

(In)visible migration

Chilly start (2C) rising to 12C by early afternoon.

Still ENE wind theoretically causing migrants to drift, seemingly drifting too far east as the vismig count from 07:15 to 10:00 comprised:

Meadow Pipit 10
Swallow 4

Redpoll sp 1

Alba Wagtail 2

Linnet 3

Carrion Crow 3.

Kittiwake 14 into Bay

Or perhaps the crystal clear sky caused the birds to fly too high making them less visible to the watchers on the ground.

Night migrants even less visible with just one Willow Warbler caught.

More visible were 4 Little Egrets feeding near Outfall 1.

The Guillemot was invisible early morning due to dredging activity in the inner harbour but was visible again in the evening.

The Purple Sandpiper was invisible throughout despite repeated searches amongst 93 Turnstone.

A pair of Teal sunned themselves on the skeer at low tide.

Two hours before high tide the Shag flew from Heysham Head towards the wooden jetty.

A couple of white Wagtails dropped,in on the roundhead in the evening. Here’s one of them:

Arctic Skua

Coverage this am was 30 mins north wall, 30 minutes Ocean Edge and one hour from Knowlys Rd upper & lower section.  All three sites included off-shore (and inshore) channel checking.  Cold ENE F4

Knowlys road lower VP - a great site for scanning the low tide channels the easy way (in combination with Knowlys upper for the 'Brent skeers area' and the north harbour wall for the outer sections) and also seeing into wave troughs during howling gales.  Wish we'd used it in previous years.  The green post 'marker' is on the mudflats behind the brown post on left hand side of pic 

Coastal sightings
Meadow Pipit - 71 NE, a large chunk of these in one gang of 36
Knot - c6500 on skeer off play area, twice as many as yesterday
Eider - 455 but some hiding behind skeers
Great-crested Grebe - 21 - many displaying pairs
Red-throated Diver - the same one as the other day off the heliport with orange object attached to the left wing - close inshore by green post
Shag - 3CY same area as RTD
Red-breasted Merganser - 7
Arctic Skua - dm adult in 0733 - quite leisurely up the Kent channel with no height gain observed - prob same bird as seen earlier off Rossall, having sat on the sea for a bit (IOY)
Little Gull - two adult together (and possibly another one far offshore as seen from OE) heading in along with trickle of Common and Black-headed Gulls
Sandwich Tern - just two together heading in
alba Wagtail - 5 NE
Linnet - 16 NE
Swallow - 1 NE
Sand Martin - 3 NE
No Brent again
Purple Sandpiper - one roosting with Turnstone on wooden jetty.

Moth trap
Nothing last night and just one moth found by Laura the previous night......but a good one: