Spent 2 hours watching for visible migrants this morning - 07:00 to 09:00. I
watched from Burton Dasset Hills - Harts Hill SP398518, which is 199 m asl and is the highest point
there. Conditions weren't as good as the last few days seem to have been but got some stuff through. Cool and clear with a low mist/fog, though clear up the hill. This made veiwing quite easy. Cloud was 0 octas ending up at 5 octas by 09:00. Wind was a maximum of 5 beaufort scale - SSW ending up as WSW.
Birds passed very wide over the hill and I missed / chose not to try to count it
all, concentrating on what came reasonably close.
Lesser Redpoll - 2 (first two birds presumably roosted in the wood there)
Redwing - 190 (largest flock 32, most less than 10)
Starling - 31
Linnet - 13 (with an additional 40+ local birds or migrants having a break)
Meadow pipit - 12
Fieldfare - 40 (one flock)
Brambling - up to 6 (at least 3 but 4 of my 6 registrations may have been the
same bird hanging around)
Chaffinch - 30+
? Crossbill - 3 ? (heard a loud sharp 'gyp gyp' call and saw three large finches
go over but still cautionary over calling them and not Redpolls)
Pied wag - 6 + obvious migrants but hard to tell with the local birds
Skylark - 24 (all after 08:00)
Blackbird
Song Thrush
Swallow - 5
Goldfinch - 2
Finch sp. - 66 + just couldn't ID them all! I think most were Chaffinches though
Thrush sp. - 130 + as above - mix of Fieldfares and Redwings
Wood Pigeons - not counted but well over 200
Yellowhammer - over 40 but presumably these are local birds not migrants?
Richard Mays (
http://onemanandhispond.blogspot.com/) had a possible Twite over.
Down in the valley towards Farnborough I could hear Sparrows (Tree?) but
couldn't see them.
Gareth
