LANDGUARD - 7th June

 Beautiful again, sunny and warm with a feather-light onshore breeze; the highlight once again was the fine adult Rose-coloured Starling which spent a bit of time first thing out on the common in front of the Obs but it never stayed in one place for long and soon disappeared towards town.   

Other birds included an unseasonal female Firecrest trapped and ringed first thing, 2 Black Redstarts, dispersing juvenile Greenfinch and Chaffinch (presumably from fairly local nest sites – although not on the reserve), 2 Common Terns, a Kittiwake, 2 Sandwich Terns, 12 Swallows south and a Swift.

Firecrest

Eyed Hawkmoth, Pine Hawkmoth, Buff-tip and Cream-spot Tiger from recent days

LANDGUARD - 16th April

 Same same same, cold first thing but soon developing into a beautiful, sunny, warm day (as long as you kept out of the very chilly N wind reminding you that spring hasn’t really arrived yet); single Firecrest and Blackcaps were caught while 2 Whimbrel flew north were the only new migrants with other birds comprising the singing Black Redstart still, a Chaffinch, 5 Goldfinches, a Sparrowhawk, a Swallow and 3 Wheatears.   

A little walk round Loompit in the afternoon produced 2 Yellow Wagtails, 7+ Blackcaps, 25 Sand Martins, 10 Swallows and 3 House Martins with the 2cy Little Gull, female Goldeneye and singing Cetti’s Warblers still present.

Firecrest

House Sparrow

Mullein - Seen plenty of caterpillars over the years but I think this is the first actual moth I've seen, it was caught at the Obs on the 10th.

Sunset over the river

LANDGUARD - 20th March

 One of those rare days with almost flat calm conditions and complete cloud cover – still very cold though, there was even a light frost; a nice selection of birds were seen through the day, perhaps hinting that we have turned the corner into some semblance of spring!   Over the sea birds included a northerly passage of 133+ Black-headed Gulls, 72 Brent Geese, a Great-crested Grebe, a Fulmar, 13 Gannets, 2 adult Mediterranean Gulls and at least 118 Red-throated Divers (most of them flying north together, presumably just shifting feeding grounds rather than an actual movement).   

On or over the land birds comprised 2 Firecrests caught, a Chiffchaff, 3 Chaffinches, a Goldcrest, 2 Meadow Pipits, 2 Robins, 4 Rook, a Stock Dove and a Yellowhammer while up the river there was a Slavonian Grebe just off the River Stour mouth and a drake Goosander which appeared to follow the Stena Ferry down the river, it seemed to be actively following the boat, flying in big zig-zags in the wake – tempting to think that it was looking for fish disturbed by the boat like a Gull but seems a bit far-fetched!

Firecrest

Lead-coloured Drab (alongside a Common Quaker) - scarce here apparently

21st and 22nd January

A couple of days birding at Dungeness; the 21st was a stunning, flat calm, sunny day, the sea was quiet first thing before a walk round the Obs recording area produced 2 Firecrests (one in the Moat and one at the top Long Pit), 12 Long-tailed Tits and 2 singing Cetti’s Warblers.   A walk round the RSPB in the afternoon was also quiet but lovely in the calm, sunny conditions with the only birds of note comprising another 4 Firecrests in with several Long-tailed Tit flocks which also contained a couple of Goldcrests and 3 Chiffchaffs, several pairs of Stonechats, a Green Woodpecker, a few calling Bearded Tits, 3 Marsh Harriers including a smart adult male, 2 Great White Egrets, big flocks of Lapwing and Golden Plover across the fields and the usual ducks etc.   

Another very calm day on the 22nd but with complete cloud cover; a look at the fishing boats in the morning produced 211 Great-crested Grebes on the sea, 300+ Auks blogging around, c30 Red-throated Divers, a few Kittiwakes and a 2cy Mediterranean Gull which went east.   A drive out to Walland Marsh then produced 2 Whooper Swans off Caldicott Lane where there was also a huge flock of c400 Fieldfares and a nice group of 28 Bewick’s Swans (including two juveniles) at Midley Farm before birds at The Patch in the afternoon just included an adult Mediterranean Gull and a single Fulmar offshore.

Firecrests

Long-tailed Tits

Goldeneye

NORTH RONALDSAY - 3rd June

Warm and calm again with a light easterly breeze; was around the Obs census route through the morning where birds included the Black-throated Diver again in Nouster with 3 Red-throated Divers, a Spotted Flycatcher by T4 and a Black-tailed Godwit and 11 Bar-tailed Godwits on Gretchen.   Walked the middle census route in the afternoon but it was pretty quiet with another 2 Spotted Flycatchers, 95 Sanderling and 40 Dunlin of note along with the first Pied Wagtail fledglings at Phisligar and a decent sized Redshank chick seen at Westness.

                The day’s highlight came late on as a cracking Firecrest was caught at Holland – rare anyway up here but this is the first one ever in spring!

Firecrest

Ugly, beautiful Hooded Crows

GEDSER - 3rd November

A gorgeous day calm and sunny with a bit of a frost first thing but the nets and the skies were a bit disappointingly quiet; we managed 40 new birds through the morning which did include a few nice bits with a Firecrest, 2 Northern Bullfinches and 13 Long-tailed Tits – 9 of which were the lovely white-headed Northern birds.   The sky was very quiet with just a handful of Chaffinches, Bramblings, Greenfinches and Siskins, a couple of Jackdaw flocks which came in off and the odd Yellowhammer, Redpoll and Reed Bunting.

                A walk up the coast in the afternoon was also quiet with just a Ring Ouzel in a hedge at Birkemose, 3 White Wagtails on the beach and 9 Little Gulls offshore of note.

 

A selection of Long-tailed Tits caught today included some pure white-headed ones, some intergrades and a couple more resembling europaeus birds

Firecrest

Northern Bullfinch

Northern Long-tailed Tits

Buzzard

 

GEDSER - 16th October

A simply classic autumn ringer’s day, the ones you dream about!   The wind dropped off to hardly anything but it stayed cloudy allowing us to put in a full day of ringing ending up with a monster 981 new birds; by far the star of the show were 854 Goldcrests caught (a tiny percentage of the actual number of birds which passed through today!).   The meagre totals of other species caught included a Yellow-browed Warbler, a Firecrest, 2 Treecreepers, 7 confusing Redpolls (probably Lessers) and 72 Robins.

                The factor that made the Goldcrest numbers even more special was that it wasn’t just a dump of migrants brought down by the weather conditions it was that they were all actively and obviously migrating with flocks pouring over the garden even before it got light in the morning – a whopping 13,000+ were counted passing the point through the day with countless birds hitting the buildings on the tip and getting eaten by Gulls, Sparrowhawks, cats and anything else that fancied a bite size Goldcrest!

                I had literally no time to look up to see what was passing over the garden through the extremely busy morning but it was clear that tens of thousands of birds were piling overhead; as in previous days Chaffinches and Bramblings dominated with 35,000 counted on the point as well as 8,000 Siskins and a Gedser record breaking 5,900 Mistle Thrushes.   I didn’t see much else from the garden but there did seem to be good numbers of Crossbills heading over with 100+ seen and heard through my infrequent looks in the sky.

 

This Redpoll was one of 7 similar birds caught as they looked pretty much like Lesser Redpolls but the adult males amongst them had huge wing lengths up to 76mm which would suggest that they were actually Mealy Redpolls but they went down as Lessers!

Treecreeper

Firecrest

 

GEDSER - 15th October

A similar day to yesterday but the easterly wind was noticeably stronger, further limiting the number of nets we could open.   We did manage to scrape up to 91 new birds however with the highlight being yesterday’s Ring Ouzel which bundled into a net after feeding most of the morning in its favoured bush, otherwise it seemed like it was just leftovers from the previous few days with 2 Treecreepers the only new birds in.

                Overhead migration was much reduced from yesterday in the stronger winds but it was still impressive with a wide range of species passing over the east.   Chaffinches, Bramblings and Siskins again dominated but mixed in with them were small numbers of Linnets, Goldfinches, Redpolls and Greenfinches while other species on the move included a group of 5 Cranes, Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, a Grey Wagtail, several White Wagtails and Swallows, a few Stock Doves, small flocks of Jackdaws and Rooks and 20+ Crossbills while raptors were represented by 2 Rough-legged Buzzards, 40+ Sparrowhawks and a Merlin.   Judging by the piles of feathers lying around the Great Grey Shrike in front hedge was having a good time of it!

                A little drive around the fields at lunchtime then produced a Jack Snipe at Skelby Strand, 4 Rough-legged Buzzards and 2 Little Gulls while the fields themselves were full of huge flocks of Chaffinches, Bramblings and Mistle Thrushes.

                In the afternoon during a stomp around Kroghage birds included a Firecrest, a Great Grey Shrike, a Short-eared Owl, a late Wheatear on the beach, a Ruff on the flooded field, c20 Swallows and big numbers of common migrants especially Goldcrests, Chiffchaffs, Robins, Dunnocks, Greenfinches and Reed Buntings but again the rare escaped me…

 

 

Ring Ouzel

Coal Tit

Firecrest

Robin

Buzzard

Little Gull

­