GEDSER - 4th November

A complete change in the weather with a howling strong SW wind and frequent rain showers moving through; ringing was limited to a couple of nets for a short spell and produced just one new bird – another Northern Bullfinch plus one of the re-traps from yesterday and the Firecrest, also from yesterday.   The only other birds seen in the garden were a nice bit of quality with a Hawfinch flushed, a single Waxwing over and a Jack Snipe flushed from near the driveway.

There were hundreds of Gulls feeding along the shore in the churned up seaweed in amongst which were at least 110 Little Gulls – with many content to feed in the flock while many others would drop in for a brief look before continuing through.

I then went out to the point for a couple of hours late morning where there was some dent passage going on offshore with another 150+ Little Gulls powering through (c500 were counted through the day) along with plenty of ducks including regular small flocks of Long-tailed Ducks, Velvet Scoter, Common Scoter and Eiders which contained the odd Red-breasted Merganser, Scaup and Goldeneye while dabbling ducks were also going through with flocks of Wigeon and Mallard (not often you see Mallard as obvious visible migrants!) which contained small numbers of Teal and Pintail.

 

Little Gulls passing the point

Long-tailed Duck

Lost juvenile Brent Goose