26th October

After several days of howling, gale force winds and rain, a bright day with a light southerly wind was always going to be good and so it proved; the nets dominated most of the day with 140 new birds caught, unfortunately 101 of those were Blue Tits which came in a couple of big waves but the total also included 2 cracking male Northern Bullfinches, 2 Treecreepers and 4 Coal Tits.   The morning was also excellent for birds overhead especially raptors with c50 Sparrowhawks dominating but also producing single Goshawk, Hen Harrier and Rough-legged Buzzard while 2 Merlins went south at sea.

                Other birds overhead through the morning included my first 2 Waxwings of the autumn, at least 3 Snow Buntings, 10 Twite, 28+ Crossbills, a Woodcock and big numbers of Finches whirling around but seemingly not really going anywhere purposefully with 600+ Bramblings interspersed with Siskins, Common Redpolls, Goldfinches, Chaffinches and a few Yellowhammers.   I didn’t really get the chance to look at the sea too much but the little I saw included a Great-northern Diver, a few Little Auks and Kittiwakes, 4 Red-throated Divers and a handful of Guillemots and Razorbills.

                With the busy nets I only had a couple of hours late afternoon to get out into the field but it was full of birds with huge flocks of Bramblings in their high hundreds roaming the plantations again with smaller but significant numbers of Common Redpolls, Siskins and Goldfinches and big flocks of 800+ Jackdaws and 600+ Starlings out in the fields.   Bits and pieces were made up of a Slavonian Grebe and 6 Grey Wagtails in Sevika and a Black Woodpecker at Groda – a brilliant day but just lacking that one quality bird!

 

Not much fell to my camera today despite it being pretty busy so here's the same Brambling front and back!