Kent trip

On seeing the weather forecast for today I spent the last two days in Kent hoping to get some easterly action. Yesterday morning I got to South Foreland Valley for dawn. Some vis mig included Siskins, Redpolls, Brambling, Yellowhammer, Reed Buntings and finches. A Firecrest was in the valley but other than that it was pretty quiet. Ebird list HERE. I overnighted at South Foreland (and put the moth trap out) and despite the keen easterly wind there really wasn't much happening apart from 28 Brambling. Further north there was a mass arrival of hundreds of thousands of Redwings and other thrushes- I only had two birds at South Foreland. Ebird list HERE. It all seemed a bit too blown out at South Foreland so I transferred to North Kent which was a good move with plenty of seabird action this afternoon Ebird list HERE. Highlights included Sooty Shearwater, 12 Poms, 8 Arctic Skuas, 17 Little Gull, Arctic Tern and good numbers of Pintail moving. Seeing Sooty Shearwater in the Thames has been a long term ambition as has jamming into a good skua day in the Thames so very pleased indeed. 

Poms (above and below). A nice selection of adults with spoons, adult winter and juveniles

Juv Arctic Skua (above) 

Sandwich Tern and Juv Pom

First-winter Little Gull

Common Scoters

Pintails (above) and Wigeon (below) on the move

Must have been 2000+ Brents around today in the Swale

Female Red-breasted Merganser

Firecrest at South Foreland 

South Foreland (below) and Dover (above) views 

Firecrest and Goldcrest calling together 

Rock Pipit and Meadow Pipit calling together 

I put the small Heath trap out in the valley. Only migrant was a Rusty-dot Pearl. Feathered Ranunculus (above) was the most numerous moth. Also Large Wainscot, Green-brindled Crescent, Beaded Chestnut, Black Rustic and Barred Sallow. 

The Old Vic

A steady few days at the Old Vic Homestead. A little bit of vis mig over the weekend with Redpoll, Siskin, a few Redwings, Linnets, Chaffinches, Mipits and Skylark over and a fly over Peregrine and 3 Cormorant taking the garden year list to 81. Still the odd Chiff about and the tit flock this morning was huge with 22 Long-tailed, 25 Blue and 12 Great Tit (plus 3-4 Coal Tits around too).  4 Magpie on Saturday was noteable- only had one occasionally all year. 

Things have picked up with the moths, now on 482 for the year (still a hope we can get to 500). New for years and other highlights in images below. Been getting up to 60 moths of 15 or so species. 

We had a bit of a disaster in the mini-zoo with two of our Long-tailed Lizards drowning or dying and then falling into the water in the Paludarium so we took our surviving lizard back to Exotics at Heart  and now got a single Panther Chameleon. We 'drown proofed' the tank by putting expanding willow between the arboreal section and the water, so far so good. Also added some more species to the Office aquarium and gave a Red Tropical Crab it's own tank after it started eating it's communities members (reminded me of Hackbridge!).

Not much happening on the mini-farm, the Pumpkins are doing well and we will harvest them next week for Halloween. Still no eggs from the chickens. 

Went to Farmoor Res today. Very quiet, finally got a Rock Pipit. EBird list here  

Magpie- one of four in a nano-influx 

Raven 

Figure of Eight- a new for year, only had a couple of these in the past 

Feathered Thorn- right on cue. NFY

Red-lined Quaker- another October classic 

Brindled Green (above) and Yellow-line Quaker (below)- more October specialities. NFYs

Grey Shoulder Knot- another new for year. 

A good run of Merveille du Jours recently 

I was anticipating migrants last night so put two traps out under cover (the MV under the garden furniture umbrella and the Actinic in the open barn). Had 4 Rush Veneers, this one was resting in this position pretending to be something a bit more interesting 

I presume this is a Beaded Chestnut variant

November moth agg- it is getting towards that time of year and we haven't got long to get another 18 species for the year to make it to 500. It could be quite a struggle to get there. 

Not sure what this is, presumably something worn. It’s a well marked Deep Brown Dart (thanks Upper Thames Moth blog ) 

Our new Panther Chameleon - wait for it in the video 

London Birding

Been working in London for last two to three days and been trying to squeeze in as much birding as possible. Did Beddington Farmlands on Wednesday morning, Mitcham Common Gunsite this morning and spent this evening at Staines Res. Beddington Farmlands Ebird list HERE and Staines Res HERE.

Highlights included Redwings on the move and a couple of Pintail at the Farmlands and Short-eared Owl, 2 Rock Pipit, 1 Water Pipit, 2nd-winter Med Gull, Common and Green Sandpipers, Yellow Wagtail and 6 Black-necked Grebe at Staines.

Rock Pipit at Staines 

Short-eared Owl putting the gulls up over the North Basin 

Yellow Wagtail at Staines 

Had at least nine Jays at the farmlands which are typically conspicuous now  

A few Chiffs at the farmlands

Don't always get an obliging Wren 

A busy time of year at work- I had 17 jobs to look at this shift. Here's one of the more formal gardens we do. More HERE

Rock and Water Pipit at Staines 

Otmoor

It was good to actually find the time and will to go to Otmoor today. Ebird list HERE. This is a really tough site to work but must get rarities. I've put a bit of time in over the years but not even had a sniff of anything decent (just a Temminck's, a Brent and a few shorebirds). Sometimes described as the rarity black hole of Oxfordshire, the site is vast and not all of it is accessible and most of it can only be birded from paths and hides (i.e you can't kick or flog the site and there are always plenty of unturned stones- and you cant even wander off piste because there is an army of RSPBSS volunteers ensuring you stick to the rules, they even troll your blog to make sure you are complying to the order :-) Also if you wander off piste on other areas of the site you actually get shot or can step on a landmine as its MOD). There also doesn't seem to be much in the way of visible migration going on over there, presumably related to the fact that it's a relatively 'new' site (since 1997) and migration in Oxfordshire presumably follows the Thames and the various escarpments and ridges (which have been here since the last ice age I suppose so plenty of time for flyways to evolve.) Also the site is excellent for breeding birds  (Cranes, wetland species, Marsh Harriers, Bitterns etc) so presumably territorial defence in top location breeding areas is very high, presumably why rarities tend to turn up in smaller lower quality habitats where strangers are more tolerated in a less competitive environment (like Farmoor and Port Meadow)? Who knows, one thing for sure is Otmoor is an Enigma. I often resist the urge to try and 'break it' as the ratio of hours of work to find something good could be an extremely poor return. However it remains the closest decent birding area to me at the family home so in a way I feel I should.  Anyway, today's visit was no different to many other visits- an impressive range of species and some great local residents but nothing particularly 'interesting' in the way of migrants or rarities. 

Adult Red Kite 

Juvenile Hobby (above), nice to compare this plumage at a similar view to last week's juvenile Red-foot at Elmley (below).  

Four or so Stonechats around- sounds like there is a very large passage going on in some areas (e.g North Downs in Surrey) but just the usual numbers by the looks of it here 

Migrant Hawkers- plenty of Hawkers and Darters around keeping the Hobby happy

Painted Lady

Farmoor and a garden rarity

Started the morning off at the Old Vic HERE, the highlights being a garden lifer- two Reed Buntings plus a few Redwings and a few Mips, the odd Skylark and a couple of Chiffs. Quite a few Redwings and a couple of Song Thrush were moving last night on the noc-mig. In the afternoon I went to Farmoor HERE, highlights there being a juvenile Ruff, Dunlin and Ringed Plover, a late Barn Swallow, 4 Stonechat and a few Yellow-legged Gulls.

Feeling gripped this evening as Corvo has finally produced a mega this autumn- another Least Bittern showing well on the village coastline. According to Birdguides all twelve of the Least Bitterns recorded previously in the WP (9 in Azores, one in Iceland, one in Ireland and last week's Shetland bird)  have all been dead or dying so fingers crossed with this one. 

Juvenile Ruff 

Dunlin and Ringed Plover

Juvenile Ringed Plover

Little Egret

Juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gull

Reed Bunting in the Old Vic garden- two birds calling from the top of the Ash tree