VIS MIG today 29th Oct 2011
I started at 7.30. A cold S-SE force 4-5, forced me to keep the side window open for too long, the bulk of migration ended by 10am.
At 8.15am I returned to the hide after 30 minutes watch by the bench. It looked to be quiet with only occasional meadow pipits calls heard. Then coming up from the eastern horizon was a flock of
wood pigeons, after a couple of minutes they got closer and headed in a SW direction. Initially I thought they had just left their roost but the flock seemed to build and stretched half way along the eastern sky. I quickly set about counting in blocks of 50 and this flock numbered at least 600 (which constituted the largest single flock I have ever seen on the reserve). I then decided to move back to the bench for a more panoramic view. Shortly afterwards another smaller flock appeared but there were still 400 in this group. After the 3rd flock appeared just minutes later, I knew that this was no normal event. After a continuous procession with flocks of 200 – 400 over the next hour or so it was more than apparent that this was the real deal – this was VIS MIG in the raw. By 9.30am the flocks were still passing over but had declined to 100 and by 10am the stragglers were in groups of 50 or so.
So in the 1hr 45 minutes there were approximately 25 groups, totaling a minimum of
5000 birds.
Today there seemed to be birds all over the sky, many distant and unidentified flocks of finch types had to be written off. Of the identified birds on Visible migration here are the totals:-
Skylark 18, Fieldfare 220, Redwing 40,
Meadow pipit 10, Pied wag 10, grey wag 2,
redpoll 37, goldfinch 30, chaffinch 10, greenfinch 5,
linnet 35, siskin (heard), Starling 120,
Yellowhammer.
There was a slight rise in the 1st Flash level which attracted 13
Teal and a male tufted the first on here for months. The
lapwing and
curlew roosted numbered 53 and 21 respectively, later new arrivals boosted the lapwings up to 146. Only a handful of large gulls appeared throughout the morning, which was in sharp contrast to last week’s good total. After the migrants had moved through many passerines (semi winter resident) fed around the reserve. Most notably were 300 starlings, 60 fieldfare, 50 redwing, 10 chaffinch and a male yellowhammer all feeding on the grassy bank next to the SE corner of the 3rd flash and up to the farm house. By 11am at least 65 species were recorded by myself and Dave J.
Walking back to the sailing pool we came across a flock of 35 - 40
redpoll feeding in last years coppiced blackthorn thicket, behind the hen pool hide, where there was also a treecreeper.
B
John