There is only one minutus

Heysham Obs
Brief visit produced:

Twite - 21 (of which, only 4 unringed birds seen).  Unfortunately, at least 3 Feral Pigeons have at last found the food, which could become expensive(!) and unsettle the Twite.
Little Gull - adult outfalls (but no sign Arctic Tern)
Med Gull - ad Red Nab
Lapwing - 151 Ocean Edge saltmarsh area

..........and no moths

Arctic Tern reappears at high tide

Heysham Obs
Just the southern coastal areas covered today in a rather intensive work-related manner!

Pink-footed Goose - flock of 220 south
Rock Pipit - 2
Arctic Tern - juvenile Heysham outfalls at high tide
Little Gull - adult seaward end of Heysham one outfall at low tide
Med Gull - 2 x 1CY briefly on the end of Heysham one outfall, also an adult there for a longer period
Kingfisher - one flew down OE saltmarsh channel
Twite - 23 OE saltmarsh, possibly more
Linnet - at least 15 OE saltmarsh

Insects
Red Admiral - 2 south along the tideline & another south whilst waiting at Moneyclose Lane traffic lights!  Feathered Thorn and Chestnut (the latter scarce here) in the moth trap

Decent coverage

Heysham Obs
Reasonably extensive coverage today with a few bits and pieces:

North harbour wall
Twite - 43 on feeder (& see below) in the morning; just 7 during a short ringing session in the afternoon.  These included a Machrihanish-ringed bird with the following details:

L999067
Ringed:  Machrihanish Seabird Observatory  3M  20/9/11
Recaptured: Heysham     28/10/11 & 1/11/11 (& probably seen mid-Oct)

Vis mig by the office 0730-0900
alba Wagtail - 1
Chaffinch - 55
Starling - 81+37
Redwing - 8
Siskin (H+)
Goldfinch - 13
Greenfinch - 3
Collared Dove - 1
Woodpigeon - 1
Mistle Thrush - 1

Power walk around the coastal circuit
Guillemot - one in the harbour by the intake
Twite - 15 'in-off' from the Walney direction, then flew across the harbour towards the mound
Little Gull - adult Heysham one outfall
Yet again we may have been denied a November Arctic Tern as there was no sign at low tide
Med Gull - two adults
Blackcap - male Nature Park but no other evidence of migrants on the dog track/nature park
Extra vis mig recorded during this walk (0915-1015) comprised 27 Chaffinch and 2 Meadow Pipit

Heysham NR late afternoon
Woodcock - one flushed eastern woodland
Blackbird - more than yesterday with c25 on circuit
Goldcrest - one NE corner along with another crest spp. nearby which refused to show itself in the gorse and might be worth a follow-up
Song Thrush - 3

Middleton NR (thanks Malcolm)
Water Rail - 2
Snipe - 2
Tufted Duck - 2
Teal - 5
Blackbird - 40+
Redwing - 7

Insects
Red-line Quaker in moth trap.  Rusty Dot Pearl disturbed from the Nature Park. Red Admiral dog track.  Single Common Darter, 2 Red Admiral and single Comma Middleton NR

Catching up with work................

Heysham Obs
................or trying too after a lengthy check of a surprising 189 moths of 24 species at my mega-site at Millhouses (migrants = Dark Sword Grass, Rusty Dot Pearl and Silver Y (2)).   Very rapid coverage at Heysham produced:

North harbour wall
Twite - 24
Linnet - 6
Meadow Pipit - 2 grounded

Stage one outfall low tide
Arctic Tern - juv
Little Gull - ad

Heysham NR
Dead - c10 Blackbird, one Song Thrush!

Heysham Moth trap
One each of the scintillating Agonopterix heracliana and Brown House Moth (wind needs to be in SW for this trap)

Routine coverage ignoring GMT as you have to

Heysham Obs
Vis mig from dawn(ish)
Greenfinch - 41
Chaffinch - 64
Goldfinch - 32
Reed Bunting - 1
Meadow Pipit
Woodpigeon - 7+4
Meadow Pipit - 6 (inc flock of 4)
Brambling - 1
Redwing - 22
Bullfinch - 2
Jay - 2
Mistle Thrush - 1
Skylark - 2
Linnet - 3

North harbour wall/Ocean Edge
Twite - c25
Med Gull - 2 adults
Arctic Tern - juv Heysham one outfall
Twinnet - c22 of each Ocean Edge south beach at high tide

Grounded HNR
New Goldcrest and Chiffchaff ringed, Chiffchaff still in NE corner
Blackbird - c35
Redwing - 5
Wren - one unringed bird now ringed

Insects
Late Brimstone male NE corner, two Red Admiral & single Common Darter on circuit of reserve.  Single Feathered Thorn and Red-line Quaker in moth trap

High speed front

Heysham Obs
A good morning to get the birding out of the way and on with some work.  A clear slot ahead of a rapidly approaching front, with little in the way of 'pre-frontal' cloud, produced a corridor of mainly finch vis mig

Vis mig 0730-0845
Greenfinch - 49 SW
Chaffinch - 71 mainly S/SW
Goldfinch - 11 SW
Brambling - 1+1 SW
Meadow Pipit - 1+1 SE
Redwing - 9 SW
Linnet - 1 SW
Starling - flock of 72 SW (plus ex-roost birds heading east)
Twite (see below)

North harbour wall 0850-0915
Twite - 27 (14 seen well showed 50% unringed); total included 2 "in-off" just before the rain
Linnet - 4
Meadow Pipit - 1 grounded
Arctic Tern - juv seaward end Heysham one outfall
Little Gull - ad offshore in the outfalls slick
Med Gull - adult harbour

Mid-afternoon HNR circuit after the news broke from Sunderland
Chiffchaff - 2; one in osier bed by dipping pond, the other in NE corner (one also heard first thing by the office)
Blackcap - male in the blackthorn scrub on the eastern edge of the marsh
Blackbird - only 20 or so
Goldcrest - one

Ocean Edge foreshore high tide
Linnet - flock of 22 on the south beach (no Twite with them)

Moth
One Feathered Thorn

Vis mig parrot exudes credibility

Heysham Obs
Quite a surge of early-morning vis mig, then the plug was pulled about 0830hrs with just bits and bats thereafter which did include a very purposeful, high-flying southbound Ring-necked/Rose-ringed Parakeet!  Grounded stuff was marginally better than the anticipated zero, especially Redwing.

Miscellany
Arctic Tern - juv Heysham one outfall (thanks Pete)
Twite - at least 42 including the red/white right-leg colour-ringed bird of unknown origin (due to not seeing what was on the other leg) which was the first Twite seen this autumn - it now been caught so will be traceable
Linnet - 4

Vis mig by the office 0715 onwards, intermittent after 0845hrs
Chaffinch - 95, mostly early and very high with very few grounded
alba Wagtail - 6
Grey Wagtail - 2+1 (late)
Sparrowhawk - male high to south
Reed Bunting - 1
Brambling - at least one
Meadow Pipit - 4 singletons
Siskin - heard once
Goldfinch - minimum of 47
Skylark - heard just the once
Pink-footed Goose - flock of 60 SE
Ring-necked Parakeet - one south at 1035hrs - watched flying straight over Ocean Edge without losing height, heading for Cockersands area.  This assumes there is only one species of green parakeet with a ring-neck!

Grounded by the office
Chiffchaff - unringed bird with a fat score of 3, definitely not a new arrival
Dunnock - one unringed
Goldcrest - 2 unringed
Blackcap - male seen- seemed to be unringed
Redwing - a surprising c40 first thing - headed inland - no ongoing passage
Blackbird - c30 first thing, c10 headed inland
Song Thrush - 5 headed inland early on
Coal Tit - although four unringed birds were caught - there was no obvious hyperactive behaviour, hence 'grounded' rather than 'vis'
Blue Tit - as above, a trickle of 5 'sedate' unringed birds caught

Ringing
Excluding Twite, unringed birds comprised: Redwing (3), Wren (1), Reed Bunting (1), Song Thrush (1), Blackbird (1), Blue Tit (5), Coal Tit (4), Goldcrest (2), Chiffchaff (1), Dunnock (1), Goldfinch (8), Greenfinch (3), Chaffinch (1), Bullfinch (1) 

Moths
A perhaps record single-night catch of 5 Feathered Thorn and a single Dark Chestnut, the latter not annual here

Butterflies
Red Admiral - 3 

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

Double-striped Pug and Yellowhammer top the bill

Heysham Obs
Vis by the office dawn until 1040
Woodpigeon - 13
Skylark - 14
Meadow Pipit - 10
Grey wagtail - 1
alba Wagtail - 13
Blackbird - 40 at dawn then inland
Song Thrush - 2 inland
Redwing - 25 first thing, then inland, 14 SW
Mistle Thrush - 1
Jackdaw - 12
Rook - 10+3
Starling - 190
Chaffinch - 213
Brambling - 1
Greenfinch - 14
Goldfinch - 38
Linnet - 2
Lesser Redpoll - 13
Bullfinch - 2
Reed Bunting - 3
Rock Pipit - 1
Yellowhammer - 1

Grounded
Goldcrest - small influx arriving from the south from 0900 with 7 ringed
Blackcap - newly-arrived female ringed
Wren - three unringed birds caught 'in the dark'
thrushes - see above
tits were conspicuous by their absence, given the 'open' nature of the morning, and not a hint of any movements, other than two unringed Blue Tit late morning

Ringing
A short session for Redwing/Reed Bunting at Middleton was a little too windy.  The nets by the office are workable in SE/SSE winds, allowing ringing this week.  This morning was quite productive with the following newly-ringed birds:  Reed Bunting (2), Redwing (7), Blackbird (2), Song Thrush (1), Wren (3), Goldcrest (7), Dunnock (2), Greenfinch (8), Chaffinch (11), Goldfinch (4), Lesser Redpoll (1), Blue Tit (2), Blackcap (1)

Miscellany
Twite - 12 Ocean Edge beach at high tide
Med Gull - adult outfalls area

Moths
Amazingly productive given the early morning was freezing cold.  Double-striped Pug was very unexpected so late in the autumn (even though it can be very early in the spring, autumnal records usually terminate in September), Satellite is scarce here and the other two were 'routine'; Parsnip Moth and Mottled Umber

A perhaps unexpected AA morning

Heysham Obs
Ringing/vis from dawn for an hour or two today with the aim to catch some pre-dawn thrushes, then the finch passage.  A nocturnal unringed (therefore just landfalled?) Wren in a mist net set the tone of the morning which saw a chunk of "AA" rings used on common birds and conversely relatively few Blackbird and Chaffinch in evidence today.  The low point of the morning was the first evidence of obvious trichomonosis this autumn (500+ finches handled) on a fairly old retrap Greenfinch - this was released immediately it was extracted and the number noted.  Less numbers but quite a bit of variety on the vis mig today with more of a cross-bay corridor than recent days

Vis mig 0720-1030
Starling - 396
Chaffinch - 179
Redwing - 286
Greenfinch - 4
Woodpigeon 38S, 16N
alba Wagtail - 5
Lapwing - 2
Reed Bunting - 3
Brambling - 3
Meadow Pipit - 4
Blackbird - 25
Song Thrush - 4
Mistle Thrush - 1
Bullfinch - 1
Goldfinch - 20 then flock of 25 over about 1130hrs
Siskin - 5, then 2 with above Goldfinch flock

Grounded
Goldcrest - small influx with 4 ringed and c6 on circuit of reserve
Blackbird - at least 27 on mid-morning walk
Wren - small influx with 3 ringed (one caught in the dark!) and 10 seen/heard on reserve circuit
Robin - lot of activity at dawn with two unringed lightweight "British-looking" birds caught in the half-light
Chiffchaff - 1
Blackcap - 1
Coal Tit - 3 unringed birds
Treecreeper - 2
Long-tailed Tit - flock of local birds held two unringed individuals, then unringed flock of 5 caught

Ringing
Not quite what was expected with the following new birds: Wren (3), Long-tailed Tit (7), Chaffinch (3), Coal Tit (3), Blue Tit (2), Bullfinch (2), Greenfinch (2), Goldfinch (2), Blackcap (1), Song Thrush (3), Blackbird (1), Redwing (1), Goldcrest (4), Robin (2)

Moth
Brick attracted to the security light but not surprisngly, nothing in the easterly-facing moth trap