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Most Single Species You've Seen (1 Viewer)

redeyedvideo

redeyedvideo

It's like water off a duck's back!
Looking at the numbers of Little Auks passing the British east coast http://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=100793 got me wondering what's the bird I've seen most of.

Golden Plover? My local patch holds in excess of 3000 birds at times, Manx Shearwater? 4000 birds an hour past Strumble Head one weekend I was there or is Pink-footed Goose? I've seen huge flocks in Norfolk but never thought about the numbers.

What's yours?
 
What about starlings or knot or something like that? Guillemots at Bempton must be pretty large number too?

Thinking about it though, like you, one of mine must be Golden Plover. We get some absolutely massive flocks round here.
 
Mine was 300,000 Knot and 200,000 other waders in the air on the Dee Estuary.

The biggest flock recorded was Chaffinches/Brambing in I think Switzerland - it was measured in millions from memory. Now I wonder if I can locate the record!

Quelea flocks are pretty mega too!
 
Jane Turner said:
Mine was 300,000 Knot and 200,000 other waders in the air on the Dee Estuary.

The biggest flock recorded was Chaffinches/Brambing in I think Switzerland - it was measured in millions from memory. Now I wonder if I can locate the record!

Quelea flocks are pretty mega too!
Click to expand...

300,000! Goodness me. What a sight that must have been. I've seen Red-billed Quelea in South Africa in flocks of hundreds, not quite the 100,000's which give them a bad reputation in other parts of Africa.
 
The sound was even more remarkable than the sight! The flock appeared to fill the whole estuary. Flocks never get above 50,000 now and mostly they are in 5-10K region.
 
Red-winged Blackbirds leaving their nighttime roost in the cattails at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, Mound City, Missouri. In excess of a million.

Also, at Squaw Creek NWR 400,000 Snow Geese. Seeing these large flocks of clamoring geese is an awesome spectacle. The noise of such a multitude of these geese can be almost deafening!
 
Snow Geese for me, too, Larry. Lower St. Lawrence River valley in Quebec, Spring migration, May 1991. The fields went on as far as the eye could see, and it seemed that every square foot was occupied by a Snow Goose. At some point they took off, completely blocking out the sky as they flew crosswise over my vehicle. I drove through this "Snow Goose tunnel" for no less than 10 minutes at about 45 mph before there was a break in the formation. Can only imagine how many geese that is.

Never experienced anything like it before, or since.

Robert / Seattle
 
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Larry Lade said:
Red-winged Blackbirds leaving their nighttime roost in the cattails at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, Mound City, Missouri. In excess of a million.

Also, at Squaw Creek NWR 400,000 Snow Geese. Seeing these large flocks of clamoring geese is an awesome spectacle. The noise of such a multitude of these geese can be almost deafening!
Click to expand...




I once had four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.;)
 
(apart from starling) Fieldfare for me (with a few redwing/blackbird/song & mistle thrush thrown in. a couple of years back our orchard (~an acre) was covered in them, wouldn't like to guess on numbers, but there wasn't a bare patch of ground in sight, and the trees were sagging with them.
 
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