A memorable VIS MIG Day
The cold Northerly winds continued and mixed with rain the day felt more like November than early May. I arrived at the hide at 6am, after half an hour both me and Phil felt less than optimistic for any movement, accentuated by the southerly!!! movement of
swallows which was a bit disconserting. How wrong we were to be.
At 6.40 the winds moved to the NE within 5 minutes a shout from Phil '
terns' revealed 14
Arctics coming in from the direction of the Sewage works. 12 of them landed whilst 2 split off they settled for 13 minutes before flying off north. An hour later yet another
Arctic tern appeared and was chased off by an
Avocet. Half an hour after this (8.30am) the 16th Arctic of the morning dropped in, and again it quickly moved off north.
After this bit of excitement I took a break to update the log. Whilst doing so I caught a snippet of what sounded like a
Whimbrel call, although
Sedge warblers occasionally utter higher pitched versions of
whimbrel at times and one was at the side of the hide, Phil hadn't heard it so I passed it off.
Ten minutes later (at 9.30am) Andy W phoned to say that he had just had approximately 23
Whimbrel flying over the sailing pool. I texted Stuart C who was supposed to be at the Moors. Unfortunately he was stuck in a queue waiting for his bacon sarnie. Half an hour later he texted me to say that there were 18
whimbrel on Amy's Marsh. We quickly got round to the Moors where the birds were packed onto the 'channel' Island here they stayed for 40 minutes or more before moving off north emmitting their evocative 7 whistle call as they went a memorable site. Whilst here another
arctic tern appeared. Just as we thought that was that for the day the rarest of all today's birds appeared when at 11.30am Stuart Croft calmly shouted
'Kittiwake'. Looking up from the hide an immaculate adult nonchalantly flew across Amy's marsh and off to the NE. Later in the afternoon Stuart had a
Greenshank briefly on Amy's.
NB A flock of 24 Whimbrel were seen not long after Andy W's flock at wassell grove not too far away while the 18 were still at Amy's. This meant there were 42 through upton today.
B
john
Welcome back Stu - Its just a pity you will be off tomorrow back to your work with the RSPB in Cornwall Its been a great week with you about and don't leave it too long until the next visit.
3 record shots of the terns and whimbrel
