Heysham Obs
The weather suggested the final vis mig morning would be a chore as I set of from High Tatham rather later than I should have been and inevitably ended up caught in traffic. Two birders were already in the car park on arrival and immediately a flock of Redwing flew over. I should have asked if I had missed anything. The next hour or so was as good as anything this autumn!
Vis by HNR office 0715-1115
These were all heading in a generally southerly direction at a height/purposeful manner suggesting they were migrating. Plenty, for e.g. of other 'blogging' gulls. All Woodcock seen included
Woodcock - two possibly flushed by the birders (first seen flying south behind them at 0735hrs, landed in the screening planting along Moneyclose Lane), one flew south out of the top path scrub (and landed along Moneyclose Lane) at 0800hrs, one flew out of the mist net ride behind the office at 0807hrs (landed in the tank farm)
Redwing - 148 & another flock heard but not seen
Fieldfare - just 11 very first thing
Greenfinch - 61
Chaffinch - 136
Starling - 275
Goldfinch - 25
Meadow Pipit - 2
Herring Gull - 24
Blackbird - 32
Mistle Thrush - 7
Brambling - 2
Song Thrush - 10
Siskin - 5
Reed Bunting - 1
Black-headed Gull - 9
Grey Wagtail - 2 together south- definietly late migrants
Whooper Swan - flock of 12 south VERY high
alba Wagtail - just 6
Collared Dove - 1
Jay - 2
Rock Pipit - 1
Snipe - 1
Linnet - 6
Common Gull - 2
Great Black-backed Gull - 3
Bullfinch - 2
Red Admiral - 4
Painted Lady - 1
Grounded
Chiffchaff - three by the office:
a) collybita-type giving collybita-type calls
b) brown one giving monosyllabic 'peep' call
c) greyish/buff one giving rather faint disyllabic call
Blackcap - 1CY male trapped with fat score of just 2
Green Woodpecker - one in the tank farm briefly
Wheatear - one Ocean Edge saltmarsh shoreline
...plus the Woodcock
Miscellany
Knot - 50,000 off Ocean Edge
Kingfisher - one Ocean Edge
Teal - 46 Middleton IE
Tufted Duck - 3 IE
Little Grebe - 1 IE
Snipe - 5 IE
Bar-tailed Godwit - 42 off OE
North wall
Med Gull - 2 adults
Twite - only 4 ringed birds seen - 2 from 'winter' 2008/9, two from earlier this week, indicating that many of the birds ringed this week have moved on and been replaced by new arrivals
Guillemot - 2 harbour
Insects
Single Peacock butterfly by the office. Also 2 geriatric Speckled Wood and a single Migrant hawker. An estimated 350 wasps flew SW past the office from a nest in the NE corner of the car park during the vis mig 4 hours. None returned via this route. No macros in the moth trap but 3 Silver Y seen in the course of the morning
Elsewhere
Slavonian Grebe Pine Lake. Avocet & 4 fence-hopping Snow Geese viewable from JB Point. 3 Great White Egret Leighton area, but only 2 definitely entered the roost. One Cetti's Warbler heard on the causeway
