More Pinkfoot movement and a tale of two Pipits

The sun shone! With a light west breeze. It was nice to see the world in colour again.

Middleton Nature Reserve 

Ringing and vis report from Jean:

Ringing

41 birds caught, 35 new birds and 6 retraps

Meadow Pipit 3

Pied Wagtail 6

Grey Wagtail 4

Goldcrest 2

Chiffchaff 5

Blackcap 1

Reed Bunting 5

Robin 2

Wren 2

Great Tit 1

Blue tit 3

Long-tailed Tit 3 retraps, the oldest one was first caught in March 2018

Great Spotted Woodpecker 1

Cetti's Warbler 1 new bird and 2 retraps (both young ones from this year)

Greenfinch 1 retrap, moulting its primaries, born in 2020.

Vis 0700-1200

These are minimum numbers as most of the time my head was down looking at the birds I was ringing.

Pink-footed Goose 786 in at least 11 flocks throughout the morning

Jay 7 (a flock of 6 plus one on its own)

Pied Wagtail 14 

Swallow 5

Linnet 5

Chaffinch 2

Grey Wagtail 2 heard in addition to those caught

Skylark 3

Meadow Pipit c40

Raven 2

Insect vis:

Red Admiral 1

Small White 1

Migrant Hawker 6

Common Darter 2

I had a pleasant walk around mid afternoon (MD)

Mute 2 adult 9 cygnets 

Gadwall 16

Mallard 3

Moorhen 11 (7 on "no swimming" pond)

Little grebe 1

Cetti's warbler 3 singing males - Tim Butler and "No Swimming" ponds, both known territories. The third a much softer song in the hawthorn line near the turning circle on the road to the trading estate. This sounded like the bird previously heard singing from the main pond car park.

Dragonflies:

Migrant Hawker 1

Common Darter 7+

Mature female Common Darter 

Butterflies:

Small Tortoiseshell 1

Comma 1

Comma

South shore - high water 12:00 (MD)

Mediterranean gull 3 adult/3rd calendar year birds on Red Nab

Wigeon 17

Ringed Plover 11

Dunlin 1

Wheatear 2

This male Wheatear is still looking quite smart for autumn.
Again, another large individual 

Rock Pipits 7 - including 3 together on the saltmarsh that looked to be off passage (not in an area normally visited by the resident birds).

Meadow Pipits 16, a number feeding before moving on. This one was feeding when it heard another pipit call, it answered and left to join the other bird.

Unfortunately, the pipit it joined was one of the foreshore Rock Pipits (left)

They swapped sides a couple of times (Rock Pipit now on right).
Before the Rock Pipit had enough and chased off the Meadow Pipit

Linnet 4

Common Snipe 1

Kestrel 1 hunting 

Skylark 4

Swallow 15 (5, 8 and 2) - the 8 appeared to be feeding around the end of the wooden jetty. This was initially puzzling, but I soon realised that the amount of guano produced by the cormorants alone must attract loads of insects to feed and breed.

The swallows are not visible at this magnification, but there are 60+ cormorants on view
You can imagine how much "insect attractant" they produce

Chiffchaff 1 near lighthouse (ref Kevin).

Pink Footed Goose c400 in small high skeins to the south between 09:30 to 10:30, after that just one skein of 14 seen - all of these birds will be additional to those seen from Middleton. So c1,200 south, seen over the area this morning, almost certainly many more missed.

Insects

Small Tortoiseshell 2 on saltmarsh