Thursday 27 October 2011

End of season dross

Heysham Obs
A half decent forecast this morning..........in theory.  In practice, the upper wind was far too much of a 'parallel' (to the coast) southerly with the ground wind more south than east.  Result: a poor morning with little evidence of newly grounded birds other than Blackbird.  The gut feeling (and contradictory rainfall radar vs written forecast) that the promised rain would not materialise proved correct with one or two miniscule pulses neither dropping any birds nor putting paid to the (mostly empty) sample mist-netting

North harbour wall/mound
Twite - 21
Linnet - 4
Rock Pipit - 1
Meadow Pipit - 1
Med Gull - 2 ads Fisher's roof

Vis mig dawn to 0930hrs
Meadow Pipit - 3
alba Wagtail - 16
Chaffinch - 62
Greenfinch - 16
Goldfinch - 29
Reed Bunting - 1 (and another grounded)
Collared Dove - one
Redwing - 102
Fieldfare - 44
Mistle Thrush - 3
Woodpigeon - 19

Grounded
Blackbird - c50
Song Thrush - 5
Redwing - 13
Goldcrest - only 3 seen/heard (one ringed)
Robin - one lightweight unringed bird

Insects
Emmelina monodactyla located along PA way (SD46A).  No moths in the trap[.  Four social wasps seen