Monday 15 October 2012

October 12/13 & 14th

The weekend started off well as I got a call at Friday lunchtime from Paul Cook telling me he had found another pallass grasshopper warbler at Marsden Quarry.  I took the afternoon off and popped down to see it.  I dipped it so Andy and I headed down to the coastal park to find several thrushes in the Big Mound.  There had been a large fall of birds during the morning but I decided not to go ringing due to the strong winds.  We found a couple of sheltered net rides and put a few nets up.

Ringing totals for Friday totalled 14 including 6 blackbird, 3 song thrush, 2 goldcrest and singles of redwing, chiffchaff and robin.


The sky went clear on Friday night so I was expecting most of the days migrants had moved on by Saturday morning.  The morning was slow however the by the afternoon we were catching a trickle of migrants, mostly tits though.  Paul Cook was on a roll finding little bunting on the Leas and several yellow-browed warblers, while Dave Foster found richard's pipit at the coastal park.  I got a call from Paul in the afternoon letting me know that he had found a locustella warbler in the nature reserve section of the coastal park.  I went down with jeff and a net to trap it as Paul was certain it was  a common grasshopper warbler but we wanted to be sure.  We set the net and walked down the wall moving the bird towards the net however just as the bird got to the net it flew over the wall then into the reedbed.  Thankfully during the process both Paul and Dave got good views and confirmed that it was a common grasshopper warbler.  

Ringing totals for Saturday totalled 64 including 13 blue tits, 12 blackbirds, 7 coal tits, 7 long-tailed tits, 6 song thrush, 6 great tit, 3 brambling, 2 goldcrest, 2 chaffinch and singles of redwing, robin, wren, pied flycatcher, blackcap and siskin.

Saturday night was similar to Friday night so again no big fall of migrants were expected.  Paul Cook continued his run of yellow-browed warbler.  Andy and I tried trapping one of them on the other side of the coastal park however it had other ideas and flew over the net 3 times.  A pod of ~5 white-beaked dolphins were also seen close inshore feeding.

Ringing totals for Sunday totalled 53 including 11 blackbird, 11 goldcrest, 10 great tit, 6 coal tit, 4 redwing, 3 blue tit, 2 wren and singles of blackcap, song thrush, redstart, robin, greenfinch and goldfinch.


Redstart © Adrian George

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