Saturday 14 September 2013

Bit of an unproductive morning

Heysham Obs
Friday the 13th one day late.  Every ringer drops the end loops on mist nets occasionally.  Sometimes this doesn't create problems.  Not so this morning and I grabbed the wrong replacement net which had a 'blue cast' to the material making it slightly more visible.  This makes a difference when trying to catch an agile species such as Grey Wagtail and this was compounded by the sun on the net after 0730hrs.  Should have risked missing some Grey Wags and replacing the net.  So after saying how easy they were to catch - one out of eight is not so good!  The original net took a good 15 minutes to sort - amazing how tangled they can get!

There were a few grounded migrants this morning as per the dawn rain shower, but nothing better than a female/imm Redstart was located and the paucity of passage Robins continues

The other negative feature of the morning was an example of a vis mig mystery where you know it is something good but the documentation is useless.  This happens to all of us who carry out vis mig day in day out.  The four calls in the eastern sky appeared to be a familiar but uk-scarce species, but the bird could not be seen as the sun was rising.  One for the bin.

Vis mig until 0930
Jay - two flew high inland as the ??usual ones and twos were still present 
Reed Bunting - 3 SE
Siskin - flock of 5 E
Goldfinch - at least 18 perceived migrants S
Chaffinch - 58 mainly SW
Swallow - 5 S
Meadow Pipit - 33 SE, nearly all early on in one spread out 'flock' (24)
Grey Wagtail - 8 SE (see above)
alba Wagtail - 21 SE
Bullfinch - 2+1 south may have been migrants/dispersal

Grounded in office area only
Chiffchaff - at least 4
Whitethroat - 2
Redstart - f/imm by the office annoying the local Robins
Sedge Warbler - juv ringed
Blackcap - 1
Song Thrush - 2-3

Moths
After the second Heysham record of Pine Carpet the other day, a rare appearance of Grey Pine Carpet this morning