Saturday 29 October 2011

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