Minimum Coverage

Heysham North Harbour Wall

Feeding Area:
Goldfinch - 30+
Linnet - 20+
Robin - 1
Magpie - 1

No Twite in the area.

Hut Moth Trap
This morning the trap held: Silver Y (3), Feathered Thorn (2) and Mottled Umber (1)

North wall on form

Heysham Obs
Visited the north wall in some murky but dry weather early morning and was surprised to see three Brambling and two Chaffinch amongst the Goldfinch/Linnet hordes on the seed.  Meadow Pipit were heard and there were about half a dozen scattered around.  Clearly further investigation needed in the absence of dog walkers and anglers.  Many of the birds were really awkward, feeding in mayweed on top of the bank and there was no easy way to get close and observe.  A rather short hard call was heard and then two brief silhouettes of something different which eventually gave itself up as an imm Yellowhammer - nice!   Unfortunately my left leg decided to give up as well and proposed visits to check the south harbour were abandoned.  Don't recommend sciatica.

Returned to the car and feeding station and gingerly staggered down with a new supply of nyger seed which inevitably flushed everything and the five larger finches headed off SE

North harbour wall mound/feeder
Brambling - male and two females
Chaffinch - two males
Goldcrest - 1
Yellowhammer - one immature
Linnet - 21
Twite - one
Goldfinch - 30+
Rock Pipit - 3 (two together)
Meadow Pipit - 6 grounded and joined by a flock of 17 which seemed to come in-off
Wren - 2
Pied Wagtail - 2
Starling - 13
Robin - 3
Dunnock - 2
Song Thrush - 1

Heysham Head - Stuart and Dan
Goldcrest - 10
Lesser Redpoll - 1
southbound vis:
Brambling - 5
Chaffinch - 3
Rock Pipit - 2
Redpoll - 2
Meadow Pipit - 5

Ocean Edge from car
Rock Pipit - 1
Meadow Pipit - 1
surprisingly dead

Moths
Feathered Thorn and a late Common Marbled Carpet

Lacking detail!

Heysham obs
Bit of an end of season feel about today. Blackbirds and chaffinches in small numbers but very little else. Unfortunately the exact figures in the ringing book - will be sorted tomorrow

Heysham nr
Brambling - 2 sw
Chaffinch - 50 plus sw
Blackbird - c50 grounded
Mistle thrush - 3 se
Pink footed goose - 6 s
Chiffchaff - one
Goldcrest - three unringed
Jay - one sw
A few goldfinch and greenfinch

Ringing
Goldcrest (3), greenfinch (2), chaffinch (1), goldfinch (1), blue tit (1)

Moth
Just a parsnip moth!

First Whoosh of the Season

Heysham North Harbour Wall
Much less misty this morning. A whoosh netting session was curtailed by noisy fabrication work close by in the Centrica compound, however not before two catches were made with a total of:

Goldfinch - 29 unringed plus 5 local retraps
Linnet - 3 unringed

There were more finches around before being displaced by the fabrication,  but apparently no Twite.  Apart from a local Robin and a pair of Pied Wagtails little else was seen by the ringers.

ajd

Meanwhile those not ringing went scouting round for odds and ends. JR found a few odds and ends while DH found some odds and ends worth reporting, including this superb Shortie):

 

Moneyclose Lane:

Brambling 1

Goldcrest 14

Chiffchaff 2

Blackcap 1

Redwing 15

Mistle Thrush 2

Coal Tit 5
Bullfinch 6
 

Red Nab:

Grey Wagtail 1

Twite 1

 

South Harbour Wall

Grey Wagtail 2

Meadow Pipit 3

Linnet 10

Goldfinch 1, Dunnock 1, Wren 1, Pied Wagtail 1

 

Sandplant and the Mound (North Harbour Wall)

Skylark - 1 grounded (very unusual here)

Song Thrush - 2 (the sea buckthorn has its uses)
Pied Wagtail 2, Robin 1, Goldfinch 2, Linnet 1, Wren 1, Carrion Crow 4, Starling 4

 

Heysham Nature Reserve

Of note - 15 Blackbirds, 1 Redwing plus 5 others over, 1 Brambling over, 1+Siskin over, 2 Goldcrests

 

Then saving the best till last:

 

Heysham Head:

Crossbill 2 - in sycamores by the Barrows, then flew east

Short-eared Owl 1 - sat on top of the cliffs, then was flushed by man's best friend and flew out over the water, then looped back and seemed to land on the rocks below the cliffs.

Brambling 1

Chiffchaff 1

Blackcap 1

Goldcrest 4

Redwing 3

Skylark 1

Patchy

Heysham Obs
Amazing difference between Heysham NR and Middleton this am - the former clear at dawn and the latter fogbound all morning.  Arrived far too late at Heysham with Long-tailed Tits already calling and entering the nets as I was setting up and one of the biggest grounding of thrushes I have known here with upwards of 100 Redwing and 50 Fieldfare was disturbed from the thin line of bushes alongside the mist net ride!   What a shame they were not up pre-dawn.  A decent catch at Heysham of the sort conspicuously absent this autumn i.e. dominated by finches, especially Greenfinch.  Middleton on the other hand was virtually thrushless with the only capture being the first Fieldfare to be ringed this millenium and the small catch was dominated by Goldcrest.  After a virtual absence of Blackcap in the second half of October, six have been ringed in the last two days in the SE winds - are these central European origin prospective winterers? 

Middleton
Cetti's Warbler - singing male central marsh early on
Lesser Redpoll - 2 ringed
Brambling - 2 over
Blackcap - 2 ringed
Vis mig not possible due to fog but plenty of e.g. Pink-feet heard

Heysham NR
A good two hours of clearish conditions saw some vis mig
Redpoll - 1 S
Fieldfare - 50 at dawn, then inland + 25 SW
Redwing - 100 at dawn then inland plus a further 220 either SW or rising from bushes and heading inland.  Then it went pear-shaped about 0900 and many subsequently heard in the fog
Blackbird - at least 48 migrants
Chaffinch - at least 40 S
Song Thrush - at least 4 migrants
Carrion Crow - 6 S
Goldfinch - 25 S
Pink-footed Goose - 350 north then 5 lots heard after 0900hrs
Bullfinch - 2+2+1 S
Skylark - 15 SE and 4 subseuqnt registrations in the fog
Meadow Pipit - 2 S
Reed Bunting - 1 S
Collared Dove - 1 E
Short-eared Owl - one "found" by a gang of Magpies on the plateau and flew, chased by 7 Magpie towards the golf course
Chiffchaff - at least two new arrivals and one ringed yesterday at Middleton
Blackcap - female ringed
Greenfinch - some movement as evidenced by ringing total
Dunnock - two lightweight unringed birds unexpected so late in the season
Long-tailed Tit - at least three flocks at or just after dawn with the only ones caught being unringed 

Ringing Heysham and Middleton new birds
Fieldfare (1), Blackcap (3), Chiffchaff (1), Lesser Redpoll (2), Goldcrest (19), Chaffinch (5), Goldfinch (3), Greenfinch (16 - equalling the grand total for October!), Song Thrush (1), Blackbird (1), Dunnock (2), Long-tailed Tit (5), Blue Tit (2)

Moths
Angle Shades x 2, Silver Y x 1, LBAM x 1
    

What we used to call abietinus

Heysham Obs
The deal these days, as per Dutch DNA samples, seems to be if it doesn't look like a collybita and  looks like our former perception of abietinus, it is now a Siberian Chiffchaff (along with the more obvious 'classic tristis') .  HPY579 is the third Goldcrest ringed by someone else this autumn

Heysham NR (thanks also to Ian and Gavin)
Siberian-type Chiffchaff - one ringed
Chiffchaff - 4 (2 ringed)
Woodcock - 1
Goldcrest - c12
Wren - one unringed
Robin - one unringed
Blackbird - c20
Song Thrush - c5
Redwing - 250 early on SW, then very difficult to keep tabs on a significant dribble
Bullfinch - 1 S
Chaffinch - several calling from bushes early on and 4 x females caught
Whooper Swan - 2 S

Middleton NR
Cettis not heard
Blackcap - 3 ringed
Chiffchaff - one ringed
Lesser Redpoll - one ringed
Goldcrest - 6 unringed and one 'control'
Robin - pale lightweight unringed bird

Monthly ringing totals for October (=715)
A very odd month with some species doing very well, yet others, notably Chaffinch and Greenfinch in very low numbers in relation to effort
Above average:
Yellow-browed Warbler (4), Goldcrest (166), Chiffchaff (85), Redwing (67), Lesser Redpoll (109), Coal Tit (34), Blackcap (45 - but only four after mid-month - passage ceased when winds went NE)
Below average
Greenfinch (16), Chaffinch (9), Blackbird (6), Dunnock (9), Blue Tit (28), Great Tit (9), Reed Bunting (27 - lot of effort for little reward here)
Rest
Goldfinch (4 - not targeted), Kestrel (1), Wren (27), Long-tailed Tit (21), Bullfinch (7), Robin (25), Song Thrush (4), Tree Sparrow (3), Treecreeper (3), Cetti's Warbler (1), Garden Warbler (1), Grey Wagtail (4)

Insects
After the little flurry of late warblers this morning, a reminder that winter is around the corner - sat on Justine's trap this morning in the Obs recording area.  The office toilet trap was quite good with 3 x Silver Y, 2 x Red-line Quaker, Large Wainscot and Pink-barred Sallow

Bit of vis mig and a few odds and ends plus belated Black Red

Heysham Obs
Did an hours vis mig at home, then a bit at Sunderland, Middleton and finally Heysham NR.  Relevant to the obs recording area were:

Reed Bunting  2 S
Meadow Pipit - 2 S
Redwing - 35 SW
Chaffinch - 38 SW (180 S over my house High Tatham  0705-0805)

Other bits (thanks Malcolm for some of these)
Wheatear - rather large juv Northern Ocean Edge
Black Redstart - one seen by a dog walker yesterday morning at the eastern end of Half Moon Bay - female/imm - described as 'uniformly sooty' (with red tail).  No sign this afternoon
Woodcock - one flushed from mist net ride whilst topping up HNr feeder
Goldfinch - 46 NHW feeder
Linnet - 20 NHW feeder
Twite - heard (just one bird?) in sea buckthorn area NHW
Chiffchaff - one Middleton
Cetti's Warbler - again singing and calling Middleton but no views of legs yet to see if ringed

Insects
At least one Migrant Hawker and one Common Darter Middleton.  Tomorrow looks very good for insects.  Large Wainscot, Turnip Moth highlights of the moth trap.  Two Red Admiral seen

Ready and waiting but few birds

Heysham Obs
The rain alarm said clearance again at c0930, so swung into action.  The problem was that the large numbers of Goldcrests had melted away/migrated on during the clear early part of last night and three hours with a mist net "only" produced five individuals (all unringed).  Significant numbers of thrushes heading south over my house 0830ish were also not replicated here.  Should have stayed at home and monitored the vis.  Thanks to Malcolm for Middleton/OE details

Heysham NR
Goldcrest - only about 10 seen (5 ringed)
Chiffchaff -one collybita-type
Redwing - 60 dropped in in dribs and drabs from the east
Mistle Thrush - 2 SW
Starling and Fieldfare - zero

Middleton
Cetti's Warbler -singing male from same location as the other day (per Malcolm) - NE central marsh
Woodcock - one near solrec
Mute Swan - 4
Coot - 4
Moorhen - 15
Tufted Duck - 13
Teal - 16+
Snipe - 1
Pheasant - 1
Blackcap - male

Ocean Edge
Mallard - the usual three
Linnet - 35
Greenfinch - 10
House Sparrow - c20
Snipe - 4

Here is a pic of what could easily be lurking somewhere on HN reserve - a presumed north European Woodcock which landed in White Lund estate yesterday morning and remained between the plant pots most of the day.   Thanks to Paul Cocker

Get a grip!

Heysham Obs
Posted 30 seconds too late for it to register as 'Thursday' which of course this was:

Messed it up big-style today as the lone observer.  Comments that you see nothing sitting in hides during the passerine migration seasons represent minor fieldcraft errors compared to retreating into the office in driving rain and SE wind which started at dawn after a clear night.  It then clears up and the wind drops but you don't go outside again until three hours later to top up the feeder! Immediately became aware of "Goldcrests in every bush"!

I had one hour to rectify the situation before I had to go:
Goldcrest - c50 on a quick reserve circuit
Blackbird - c30 ditto
Song Thrush - 3 ditto
Starling - 700 S
Fieldfare - 130 SW
Skylark - 14 SE

The one mist net set for one round produced 4 x Goldcrest, 2 x Goldfinch and 1 x Greenfinch

Hooked beaks and claws day

Heysham Obs
A very short post-rain ringing session at the feeders produced a juvenile male Kestrel in the net - perhaps targeting a rat!

Earlier a Short-eared Owl flew south over the office area mid-morning but was chased away by crows, when it seemed to want to land in the tank farm, and carried on south.  Hopefully I can retrieve this species for the Patchwork Challenge having missed two this week

Middleton NR
Goldcrest - 5+
Chiffchaff
Couldn't hear any Cetti's Warbler but not there very long

North harbour wall
Goldfinch - 26
Linnet - 20
Meadow Pipit - 1 grounded

Moths
1 Silver Y the only inhabitant of the trap