Clear night and full moon produces the goods!

Middleton NR is on a roll at the moment with lots of ringing and vis-migging producing new birds each day - one retrap out of 54 birds caught today.   These included a sprinkling of late warblers including:  2x Reed, 2x lesser whitethroat, 1x Whitethroat and garden warbler and low single figures of blackcap, chiffchaff and goldcrest.   Three grey wagtail and 20 meadow pipit comprised the vis mig which was ringed.

Vis
Grey Wagtail 3 (as above)
Meadow Pipit 64
alba wagtail 2
Reed Bunting 3
Grey Heron 3 (2 + 1 heading east)

Grounded
Wheatear - 2 on the heliport, 1 at Ocean Edge

At least one med gull around the outfalls

Minimal rounds

Wind direction - NW

Outfalls area
Little gull - one ad
Med gull - 2 ad,2 2cy

Middleton vis mig 0900-0940ish
Meadow pipit - 56 se
Swallow - 11 se
Carrion crow -3 se
Alba wagtail - 7 se
Grey wagtail - 1 se and one seemingly off-passage bird sewage works

Middleton general
Tufted Duck - 10
Water Rail - at least 2 squealing western marsh reedbed
Cetti's Warbler - one burst of song in response to water rail as yesterday!

Even vis-ier

Bird of the day: Meadow Pipit

When you get a steady stream of Meadow Pipits throughout the morning, it's hard to believe that Meadow Pipits have declined in this country by 25% in the last 30 years and that globally it's "near threatened". There are still an estimated 1.9 million pairs nesting in the British Isles but at its current rate of decline that will soon get whittled down. With such a numerous bird you would think that we know all there is to know about them but of course researchers have concentrated on less numerous and faster declining species and the BTO Migration Atlas states that there are "some major gaps in our knowledge of their winter ecology".





Once again we decamped to Middleton Nature Reserve as work on hut demolition was starting at Heysham Nature Reserve. Pleasant weather - calm, warm and overcast. Wind direction - E

Vis (0620-1120):
Swallow - only 1 over (and only 30 in the roost)
Meadow Pipit - 390 (including 30 ringed)
Grey Wagtail - 18
alba wagtail - 5
Goldfinch - 5
Skylark - 1 (first of the autumn on vis)
Reed bunting - 2

Ringing: New birds -
Meadow Pipit 30
Chiffchaff 12
Blackcap 9
Willow Warbler 7
Robin 5
Blue Tit 5
Grey Wagtail 4
Lesser Whitethroat 2
Goldcrest 2
Reed Bunting 1
Goldfinch 1
Great Tit 1
Whitethroat 1

Retraps - just a Wren and a Blue Tit.

Report by JR

Keeping vis-y

Heysham Nature Reserve office is due to be demolished but a temporary "welfare cabin" has been provided until the new office is built. It fits nicely into a corner of the car park as you can see.

The weather was too nice to explore the inner workings of the welfare cabin so we spent the morning (06:10 - 11:10) monitoring overhead "vis" at Middleton Nature Reserve and ringing a few birds.

Wind direction - NE
Vis:
Meadow Pipit 104 S or SE
Swallow 60 ex-roost which flew SW then S plus 36 S
Grey Wagtail 13 at least (7 ringed) SE
alba wagtail 1 SE
Reed Bunting 1 SE
Goldfinch 1 SE
Carrion Crow 4 SE
Sparrow hawk flock of three south

Ringing:
New birds (in order of appearance) - Grey Wagtail (7), Meadow Pipit (8), Willow Warbler (1), Goldcrest (2), Chiffchaff (3), Goldfinch (2), Blackcap (3), Long-tailed Tit (2), Dunnock (1), Great Tit (1), Blue Tit (1), Lesser Whitethroat (2), Blackbird (1)
Retraps: Robin 2, Long-tailed tit 4.

One of us sneaked off to Red Nab and saw 3 x 1CY Mediterranean Gulls and an adult Med Gull with a ring (but too distant to read the ring).

Heliport
Wheatear - 5

Besides birds, moths are on the move. Here is a photo of Ronaldo's favourite moth, the Silver Y which was nectaring on the soon to be removed buddleia outside the old hut:

Two species we thought we had seen the last of this year

.......but otherwise a bit 'trickly' with the vis mig still in fits and starts, even meadow pipit and swallow.

Middleton
Grasshopper warbler - juv ringed
Warblers caught comprised low single figures of blackcap and chiffchaff plus a single garden warbler and a couple of goldcrest.    A couple of new reed bunting are hopefully the start of a decent passage for a species producing a decent recovery/control ratio.  Four grey wagtail were colour ringed.  Vis revealed unremarkable numbers of swallow, goldfinch, chaff inch, Alba wagtail and meadow pipit and maybe 2-3 extra grey wagtail.

Ocean edge and red nab high tide
Just a bit too high and 'non red nab' waders were distant dots down the tideline
Med gull - just adult (metal ring right leg below knee), 2cy and two 1cy
Common sandpiper - very late for here especially two together - on red nab
Turnstone - 105 (mostly wooden jetty)

Butterflies
The buddleias days are numbered by the office but they are going out with a bang with 10 small tortoiseshell, 2 painted lady, one red admiral and 2 small white

End of the road and a few decent birds

Couldn't make up this morning. A last check of the moth trap before building demolition saw........a broken bulb - happens about once a year!   No moths.

Ocean edge/red nab just after the neap high tide was rather good
Pintail: two f/imms with shelduck are the first coastal birds I have seen on the deck - usually flying past in small flocks in gales.
Little stint -two juvs with about 30 scattered Dunlin
Med gull -- at least 8 but many gills scattered out of range along the tideline to south
Rock Pipit - first of autumn
Black-tailed Godwit - 3 OE spartina area

Vis mig
0800-0845
Grey wagtail - 7 south
Chaffinch -5 south
Meadow pipit - 2 south
Alba wagtail - 3 south

Long-tailed tits lead the way in marginal ringing weather

Middleton NR dawn to 1000hrs
Again very little vis mig with one or two grey wagtail and single figures of meadow pipit and swallow

Ringing included: Long-tailed tit (8), chiffchaff (3) and singles of Grey Wagtail, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler, Sedge warbler and just the one Blackcap

Barred warbler leads the way

Typical of several Barred Warbler occurrences on the west coast. Apart from an early small flurry of Blackcap, there was very little evidence of grounded migrants.  Completely unexpected as nothing much doing with this species to the north of here, unlike the last Heysham record which followed Shetland 'crawling with them' in 1997. A long gap, even for the west coast, but our heavily vegetated recording area doesn't give a lot of chance to locate unless in a mist net and. as implied, they often don't turn up during obvious fall conditions.  Indeed, the pager messages suggest that this might be the only one in the country today!!

Pics later as no computers or internet in hey nature reserve ex-office which contains not a lot more than one plate, one fork, one tin of tuna and a kettle plus coffee

Ringing included:  Barred Warbler (1), Garden Warbler (1), Blackcap (9), Chiffchaff (3), Willow Warbler (2) and Grey Wagtail (3)

Middleton wetlands:  9 Tufted Duck, Gadwall and three Teal

Vis mig over Middleton
Not a lot today with only half a dozen Meadow Pipit and about double that number of Swallow plus a single House Martin, plus 5 Grey Wagtail (three of them ringed)

Cabbage moth a bit of a mega in the trap!

Thursday sightings

7-8 meds and the ad little gull outfalls Thursday . 16 meds seaward end Heysham one on friday

Another vis mig throwaway and unexpectedly large Goldcrest arrival

Heysham Obs
Unfortunately a bird calling three times with the 'front end Yellow Wag and the back end Richard's Pipit' (per Jean) did not land and all that could be done, after listening to recordings, was to inform patchworkers in some proper habitat along the direction of flight that a Citrine Wagtail seemed to be heading their way

Middleton NR
Vis mig interrupted by mist net rounds
Putative Citrine Wagtail - one SE 1000hrs
Grey Wagtail - 10 SE (6 ringed) - a more normal capture ratio, revealing that you need the loud continuous tape, not an MP3 with a gap, and the net set as low as possible - all birds in the bottom shelf)
Meadow Pipit - at least 25 SE
Swallow - at least 25 SE

Grounded
Goldcrest - at least 5 around the office at HNR on a brief visit and 'many more' in addition to those ringed at Middleton - a very sudden large influx for this time of year - more akin to an October fall of continental birds
Otherwise see ringing with phylloscs in very short supply this morning

Ringing at Middleton
Newly ringed birds out of a total of 50 odd included Grey Wagtail (6), Blackcap (7), Chiffchaff (2), Garden Warbler, Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Goldcrest (5)

Moths
The final moth night at Heysham toilet trap will be Sunday night with the trap being dismantled (ie the bulb removed and egg packing removed) by 0800hrs Monday.   Who wants to check it last as I can't make Monday morning?   Last night saw the first overdue Pinion-streaked Snout of the year