With the promise of winds swinging easterly over the weekend, Chris and I headed down to Landguard to join our old ringing buddy Gavin. Thirty birds were ringed on the 20th and we were hopeful that we might have a good few days. On Friday we had all nets open and caught 11 birds including Chiffchaffs, Robins, Blue and Great Tits and Goldfinches.
Things were a little better on the Saturday with an increase to 15 birds ringed, including the first Brambling of the autumn.
Things were a little better on the Saturday with an increase to 15 birds ringed, including the first Brambling of the autumn.
3F Brambling
Meadow Pipit
The wind veered easterly in the early afternoon. All seemed very quiet towards the end of the day, but with reports of Yellow-browed Warbler and Red-breasted Flyctacher amongst other migrants along the coast in Norfolk we were hopeful as ever. But it transpired that there had been a mass exodus over night and the only four birds caught were Greenfinch, Blue Tit, Whitethroat and Great Spotted Woodpecker, and the dump of good birds in Norfolk failed to make it much further south in any numbers.
The birds observed on Sunday included 350 Wigeon, 200 Brent
Geese, 190 Gannet, 2 Manx Shearwaters, a Sooty Shearwater, 2 Leeches Petrel, a
Short-eared Owl, 2 Guillemots, 2 Razorbills, 30 Arctic Skua and a Pomerine Skua
- but we weren't viewing constantly and missed many of these while doing the
rounds.
The heligoland trap