Corvo Kick (in the teeth)

I knew it would be dangerous doing a family/work trip in late September but I couldn't get out of it and I still can't as my brother Steve is finishing off business in Malta and won't be back until mid-next week to take over running the tree and garden business so I'm still grounded in the matrix until then. Meanwhile Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda have been making their way along the east coast of the US causing a lot of migration displacement into the Atlantic. e.g. have a look at this checklist from a vessel off Massachusetts HERE and there has also been a decent arrival of American migrants onto Bermuda too. Birds are also reaching Corvo (despite the lack of direct hits with the storms) with the 3rd Prothonotary Warbler for the WP (all records on Corvo) found on 27th September and still present at least until yesterday and a Cape May Warbler has been found today too. Supporting cast include a nice selection of more expected American vagrants. There's a few Azores ticks I need out across the islands at the moment including the Great-tailed Grackle on Sao Miguel, Black-necked Grebe and Baird's Sandpiper on Terceira and Prothonotary and Cape May Warbler and Cackling Goose on Corvo.

From the looks of the weather forecast the best conditions will have passed by the time I can escape here so it's looks like I've blown this opportunity. The weather is actually beginning to look good in Bulgaria with a period of westerlies and southerlies starting mid-week so I will keep an eye on things for when my cage door opens and I can start 'chasing the hare'.  

For a flavour of what's occurring out on Corvo here's yesterday's log by Adrian Jordi from the Corvo Facebook page HERE below:

October 2, 2025
No major new discoveries were made today, except perhaps for a Common Yellowthroat seen in the tamarisks along the coastal path. While the meadows and small woods were mostly shrouded in fog, the weather was better in the lower areas. For many birders, the highlight of the day — besides the long-staying rarities — was the fish dinner at Izzy Burger.

Reservoir Slopes

Cackling Goose 2, also seen in flight over the village (Ole Krome and others)
Northern Harrier 1, still on the island (Pekka Kyllönen and others)
American Golden Plover 1 (Ruben Coelho)
Lapwing 1 (Ruben Coelho)
Lapland Bunting 1, heard in the thick fog (Markku Santamaa and others)

Cape Verdean Farm

Bobolink 1, the very elusive bird was briefly seen in the morning (PAC)

Fojo

Black-and-white Warbler 1, still around (Henk Schut)

Tamarisks along Coastal Path

Common Yellowthroat 1, possibly the bird found nearby last week (Ole Krome, Peter Meyrahn)

Lower Da Ponte

American Redstart 1, still there and very vocal (Pedro Nicolau and others)

Da Ponte Bridge

Red-eyed Vireo 1 (PAC)

Prothonotary Wood (Small Coniferous wood above da Ponte)

Prothonotary Warbler 1, perched for 15 minutes on the same branch! (Miguel Berkemeier and others)
Red-eyed Vireo 1 (Pedro Nicolau and others)

Doctor’s House – Black Beach

Great Blue Heron 1 (Ole Krome, Peter Meyrahn)

Pico

Red-eyed Vireo 1 (Christoph Haag)

Back in the game

After two days of catching up with work I was free to do a day in the field today. I teamed up with Marc and we headed to East Head HERE and this afternoon I did the local circuit HERE. Highlights at East Head and Snowhill Marsh included over 100 Brent Geese, 2 Spoonbill, 9 Greenshank, Firecrest, a late Lesser Whitethroat and good numbers of Chiffchaffs and Goldcrest with 32 and 17 respectively. Highlights of the afternoon session included 2 Curlew Sandpiper at Church Norton, 2 Green Sand on Ferry, 3 Marsh Harrier, 10 Stonechat and 1 Whinchat and the incredible sight of 90+ Cattle Egret coming into roost on the other side of the harbour at Owl Copse. 

I got in a garden watch yesterday morning HERE and on the continuing later autumn theme I had the first flock of Lapwings going over and there was a bit of vis-mig with Siskins, Pied Wagtails, Yellow Wagtails and Mipits.

I got the moth trap out yesterday night and there wasn't much- only 13 species of about 40 individuals during a rather cool night. 

Returning Brents over East Head

First-winter Spoonbills

Whinchat

Chiffchaff- pretty much everywhere today. We only had 5 Barn Swallows today and what with the large numbers around during September now behind us , it's all rather late autumnal out there.

The moth trap dominated by Lunar Underwings (so variable) is another sign of the times

Black Rustic- another classic later autumn  moth 

Malta wrap

Back from Malta and despite keeping my eyes and ears open it was more or less birdless- just a few Sardinian Warblers, Italian (Maltese) Sparrows, a couple of Swallows, a few Yellow-legged Gulls and what looked like a high Honey Buzzard going over.  Had a nice encounter with a Swallowtail butterfly and had a Rush Veneer in a restuarant. That was basically it! 

It was absolutely not a birding trip though and I didn't spend any time in decent habitat and spent most of the time doing admin, meetings, purchases and family meet ups- the family meet ups were great and the admin and other bits went well. 

The trip objectives were to meet up with family, sign off on a new build and get it rented out and get Maltese citizenship and an EU passport. Everything went to plan and all the balls are rolling so a good success.  

What's this got to do with birding? Well, this is part of the machine in the background that generates the time and money to go birding and do our projects. Next trip will be a full on birding trip. 

Marsaskala Bay- my mum's home village. 

We randomly bumped into an old hunter who showed me his collection- some good Med birds in there- three skuas sp by the looks of it. 

As part of the joint venture with another owner in this block we built two extra floors and painted the building pink. Looks alright to me. 

Family meet up- my mum and brothers and sisters. The main reason for this trip was to meet up with my brother Paul (on the right) who lives more or less anywhere in the world and refuses to visit the UK for various reasons so we have to meet up on 'neutral' ground.  I spent a lot of the week eating all my favourite Maltese dishes - hence the strained holiday shirt!

Interlude

Sadly I've got to take a break from autumn migration for a four day work trip to Malta. I got a last garden session in this morning before leaving for the airport. Ebird list HERE. Siskins, Chiffchaffs (image above) and Hirundines continue to dominate the migrant scene at the moment with up to 12 Chiffchaffs being a garden record. 

The purpose of the Malta trip is to get a Maltese (European) passport to circum-navigate any Brexit travel restrictions (particularly in the future for potential system upheavels-listening to Trump rambling on insanely at the UN yesterday is basically confirmation that nothing good is coming from that direction). Fortunately my mum is from Malta so I can become a Maltese citizen and get an EU passport which is handy becuase Malta also sells EU passports to any foreign nationals via the 'Golden Passport Scheme' which basically involves paying them a quarter of a million quid so for once, having a firey Mediterranean mother has weighed in! 

I also need to sign off on the new flat we have built out there and get the rental sorted out on that so it's basically going to be a grim trip. My other brothers and sisters are meeting up out there so that will be good to see everyone again. 

Hopefully the new property rental will work out well and generate some more income to spend on our projects: 

LITTLE OAK GROUP

Weekend Round-up

My niece Fran visited this weekend so yesterday I only managed to do some garden birding which worked out well HERE with the highlights being a first-winter male Redstart and Spotted Flycatcher, 6 Blackcap, 2 Chiffchaff and 3 Goldcrest in the lane with 18 Siskin, 35 Mips, 10 Pied Wag, 9 Yellow Wags and some hirundines over and a Kingfisher darted through, a Peregrine went over and 5 Golden Plover also flew over towards Medmerry. Kingfisher was a garden tick so now on 111 HERE. 

This morning I met up with Ed Stubbs before I had to be back for family breakfast. It was good to see Ed and we also had a decent bit of birding along the North Wall the highlight being a fly-over Woodlark which was a Peninsula tick and my 200th bird for the Peninsula (182 for the year). We also had Spoonbill, Cattle Egret, Spotted Redshank, Curlew Sandpiper, 2 Wheatear and a group of 5 Raven flying north. 

After Fran went home this afternoon I popped into Mill Lane Marsh where a male and female Redstart were on the nearby fence posts and then I checked out Church Norton where 5 Curlew Sandpipers and a Little Stint were feeding out on the mud with the Dunlins and 3 Spoonbill flew over. 

The wind has shifted to the North-east today with cool night temperatures so I didn't put the trap out last night but on Friday night it was still pretty busy with quite a few migrants. 

First-winter male Redstart

First-winter Wheatear

First-winter Spoonbills (above and below)

Ravens going over 

Radford's Flame Shoulder- the first one in quite a long time . Certainly not as many around this autumn as last autumn. Also not so many Blair's Mocha's as last September. 

Large Wainscot- a NFY.  Latest on the score board is 548 for the year and 620 all time. 

Oak Nycteoline- not a common moth round here

Little Stints and Big Swallow passage

Despite a backlog of admin I needed to do, I got my priorities right and abandoned my post in the matrix and headed out into the field for an impulsive days birding. It was the first nice weather day in weeks with a warm southerly breeze and a mid-morning high tide so I headed over to East Side . Fortune favours birds-above-work and indeed I had 87 species of 7125 individuals with highlights including the first 2 Little Stints of the year locally (2 juvs), 8 Curlew Sandpiper (in the roosting flock of 450+ Dunlin and Ringed Plover) a flock of 12 Ruff circling, a late Little-ringed Plover, 2 juv Black Tern, 4 Spoonbill, my first Golden Plovers of the autumn, 3 Spotted Redshank, 2 Greenshank 2 Yellow-legged Gull, singles of Whinchat and Wheatear and some morning vis-mig including 39 Siskin, over 100 Mips, a few Yellow Wagtails and Reed Buntings and most impressive of all was the immense passage and congregation of hirundines - I estimated about 5000 Swallows by mid-morning with birds moving south all morning and gathering in the fields west of Norton and south of the Breach Pool. At one point a Hobby was mowing through them and three Marsh Harriers were circuling in the thermals with them too. Ebird list HERE.

It was a pretty epic day on the whole Peninsula today with thousands of migrants around- see the Selsey Peninsula blog for the full news HERE. 

I'm now on 182 for the local patch year list HERE. The Peninsula is on 212 for the year (which Ian says is the annual average for the whole year so we are ahead of target) and Bart, the lead lister is on 201 with a record to beat of 208 so looking good this year for a possible recording breaking year- fingers crossed.  

Juv Curlew Sandpiper- one of eight birds present including at least one adult 

Two juv Spotted Redshank with Little Egret

Juv Little Stint 

Spoonbills

The first Golden Plovers of the autumn. There were also 16 Pintail, 30 Wigeon and 60 Teal in the harbour - won't be long now for the first Brents to appear. 

The wader roost at Pagham spit is getting pretty impressive with about 245 Dunlin and 225 Ringed Plover present. I only had 2 Knot

Mid-autumn is now officially here with the arrival of Lunar Underwings at the beginning of this week and last night there were the first Sallows- Sallow (above) and Centre-barred Sallow (below). The trap is about 80 per cent Large Yellow Underwing at the moment (about to 100 individuals). 

Obsidentify couldn't make it's mind up if this was a Neglected Rustic- will wait to see what the CMR says. 210925- the man from Del Monte says no- it's a Square-spot Rustic. 

Birthday tick

Andrew found a juv/first-winter Grey Phalarope at Honer Reservoir today which was handy as it was my birthday so after we finished brunch at the Ivy in Chichester I went out on a birthday twitch which luckily was successful. Now on 199 for the Peninsula. Thanks Andrew for the best present of the day.  Looking forward to see what the 200th bird will be.

The moth trap was lively again this morning with a good number of migrants. Highlights were two Convolvulus Hawkmoths and a Red Underwing. I thought my number had come in when I first saw the Underwing as the strong fork-lightning cross line led to me think it might be a Rosy Underwing but alas after checking the underwing and the other forewing markings it was not to be. Still on top of the wish list.  

Juv/first-winter Grey Phalarope. There's been quite an influx of these recently across the region with 28 entries into Birdguides today HERE, mainly in the west and multiple birds at some sites including up to 6 at Portland and also one at Beddington too. The westerly bias implies an arrival in the west due to the intense Atlantic storm weather over the last few weeks which has also been linked to the big arrival of Balearic Shearwaters locally too. 

Convolvulus Hawkmoth and Red Underwing