20th August

Still nice and sunny with the NE wind calming down a touch (at least for the first few hours anyway); an Icterine Warbler was the highlight in another meagre catch – admittedly the conditions weren’t great for netting but there was obviously more birds around than of late as round the lighthouse birds included the first Red-throated Pipit of the autumn, a Grey Wagtail, 4 Tree Pipits, 5 Yellow Wagtails, 21 Tree Sparrows, a Brambling, 15 Crossbills and flyover Little Stint and Spotted Redshank.

                There was some good action offshore as well a couple of small pods of 5-6 Pilot Whales heading south the highlight for me while birds included a juvenile Little Gull, a juvenile Kittiwake, a Black Guillemot, some steady wader movement including 50 Oystercatchers, 63 Ringed Plovers, 39 Golden Plover, 126 Knot, 21 Sanderling, 192 Dunlin and 13 Ruff while 4 Kestrels also went south offshore.

                The wind had got back up again by mid-morning so I went round the inland sheltered spots again which produced a Hobby bombing over Lebeltet, 5 Pied Flycatchers, 4 Spotted Flycatchers, a Cuckoo, a Redstart, a couple more Tree Pipits and the now resident female Goshawk sniffing around a Peregrine with a freshly killed Teal.

                There were still plenty of waders around the coast with a red flagged Dunlin with 300+ others in Sevika – I think it’s from Svalbard the most interesting along with 2 Little Stints and a Grey Plover also in Sevika and 3 Spotted Redshanks on Fuglejønna while several Peregrines, a couple of Sparrowhawks and a Merlin did their usual shock and awe attacks on the flocks.

 

Peregrine

Whinchat

Cuckoo

Wood Sandpiper

Ruff

Red flagged Dunlin

Migrant Hawker