Heysham Obs
Ever been ashamed of finding (or " " in this case) a decent bird?! Even worse than being a mystery miscreant on mega-private land or finding something of national importance when you should have been at work 100 miles away (I think this happened to someone with a Norfolk Fan-tailed Warbler??) is letting one go through poor judgement from a mist net. I forgot the furling stick whilst setting the 'top nets' & double-looped one end which meant, of course it was a bit difficult to lower the net for a top-shelf bird, which was exactly where it should have been right above a Yellow-browed Warbler tape! However it was still well within reaching range but the recent fog had resulted in slightly chilled hands.........
Having escaped from mist net at 0930hrs, the Yellow-browed Warbler was relocated by Tom Wilmer below the Obs Tower and showed well for about 45 minutes before becoming elusive and allowing only one further glimpse. One of the observers was a perfectly timed Jon Carter!
Quite an interesting morning with complete clarity at dawn and much reduced thrush and finch passage seemingly heralding a 'duff' morning. Then low cloud rolled in from the north-east, seemed to 'drop' the Yellow-browed along with a sprinkling of 'orange' Robins, a few Goldcrest & the odd new Chiffchaff. Coal Tits were prominent this morning but only in ones and twos and difficult to numerate
Vis mig
Cormorant - 2 SE
Redwing - c20 at dawn, 27 SW
Chaffinch - c40 SW
Redpoll agg - 2 S
Brambling - minimum of 5 SW
Siskin - 9 SW
alba Wagtail - 15 SE
Meadow Pipit - 21SE
Crow - 16 messing about and eventually landed on non-op land & started eating seabuckthorn berries!
Peregrine - 1 E 0830
Snipe - 2 S
Pink-footed Goose - 8 S
Goldfinch - 18 SE
Mistle Thrush - 6 SE
Coal Tit - at least 15-20 passing through (see ringing)
Skylark - 3 S
Grey Wagtail - 1 S & one blogging
Grounded
Yellow-browed Warbler - one below the Obs Tower from 0930 to about 1130hrs
Goldcrest - very few early morning ('none' left from yesterday?) but a small influx when the cloud rolled in, probably c20 in total (see ringing)
Treecreeper - yet another new bird caught
Song Thrush - c20 grounded birds
Blackbird - less than 20 obvious migrants reserve area
Chiffchaff - 3, including a bird ringed at Middleton on 21/9!
Greenfinch - slightly more prominent than yesterday but no more than 15 passing through
Linnet - 31 Ocean Edge
Rock Pipit - 1 petrosus-type OEdge
Ringing (almost all on reserve)
Redwing (6), Robin (7 - including three very grey/orange birds), Blue Tit (3), Coal Tit (8), Long-tailed Tit (17), Blackbird (2), Chaffinch (6), Greenfinch (5), Dunnock (1), Great Tit (1), Blackcap (1), Wren (2), Treecreeper (1), Goldcrest (8), Chiffchaff (1)
