SWEDEN - 14th October

 Nice and sunny again but there was a real bitingly cold northerly wind which increased through the morning making things difficult, the nets therefore were pretty quiet with the first Redwing caught the highlight; not much else was seen through the morning with the Little Gull still in the bay along with 21 Shelduck, 1,080+ Wigeon, 217 Dunlin and 2 Greenshank, a Hen Harrier south, a kettle of 10 Buzzards overhead at lunchtime, an adult male Peregrine perched on the saltmarsh and 37+ Fieldfare.   

A walk round the point early afternoon in the now strong NE wind was heavy on the quality if not the quantity, highlighted by an awesomely unexpected EAGLE OWL which I flushed from close quarters out of a smallish Rosa bush almost as close to the sea as you could get – a migrant, heading off somewhere or just a locally dispersing youngster, at the very least a seriously out-of-context bird, just what autumn birding is all about!   

The only other birds were a smart 1cy female Arctic Peregrine type, also out on the point and an impressive pre-roost count of 482 Hooded Crows made from the Obs in the evening.

Redwing

Grabbed shots of the Eagle Owl

Arctic Peregrine type

GEDSER - 20th October

Yet another awesome day of ringing and tens of thousands of birds pouring overhead; a dry, overcast day with lightish winds meant another all day ringing session during which we managed an excellent 678 new birds again dominated by 486 Goldcrests which generally came through the very hectic morning (at some stages we were just down to two nets due to the sheer volume of birds being caught) while other birds making up the totals included 26 Wrens, 41 Robins, 29 Blue Tits and 19 Siskins.  

                There was some quality mixed in with the catch though with our fifth Yellow-browed Warbler of the autumn caught in the morning rush, 2 Firecrests, 12 Northern Long-tailed Tits (along with two Southern birds resembling the British ones), 3 Treecreepers, 2 Northern Bullfinches (plus one of yesterday’s re-traps) and another awesome Hawfinch.

                During the crazy hectic mornings ringing there were tens of thousands of birds piling over the garden to the east but unfortunately I didn’t have that much time to just appreciate the spectacle let alone get any counts of anything.   Chaffinches, Bramblings and Siskins were again passing over in big flocks but the day belonged to the thousands and thousands of Fieldfares (and smaller numbers of Mistle Thrushes and Redwings) which poured over the garden in huge flocks – amazing scenes!   The numbers I saw over the garden were a small percentage of what was happening through the day as numbers counted at the point included 65,430 Fieldfares, 12,170 Mistle Thrushes, 1,750 Redwings, 25,400 Chaffinch\Brambling and 1,590 Siskins!

                Mixed in the multitudes were a couple each of Woodlarks and Hawfinches, at least 200 Sparrowhawks, several Red Kites, a Common Buzzard, 20+ Swallows, a couple of Grey Wagtails, more probably Northern Bullfinches, several Crossbill flocks and a selection of the other usual bits and bobs – Redpolls, Greenfinches, Linnets, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits etc.    Also more obvious today were big flocks of Woodpigeons, Jackdaws and Rooks with a few Stock Doves thrown in.

                Definitely also worth a mention was a brilliant first winter Peregrine which perched on a dead tree on the edge of the garden and allowed close approach to enable some decent pictures to be taken; the bird had many features suggesting an ARCTIC PEREGRINE of the subspecies calidus, with its pale head, thin moustachial stripe on very white cheeks and the underpart streaking fading to much thinner streaks in the centre of the chest.

 

Putative Arctic Peregrine

Northern Long-tailed Tits; the bottom picture was when one of them perched on the net (but not actually trapped in it!) to look up at and investigate the rest of the flock which were caught!

Hawfinch