Understanding Vagrancy by Dr Paul Dufour

Really enjoyed this lecture from Paul Dufour delivered recently in Oxford about the phenomenon of rare birds and the biological and evolutionary implications of them. There's a lot more to rare birds than a lot of people know and here's a great introduction on the subject. I've had the pleasure of birding on Corvo and working on some papers with Paul who is a world leading authority on the subject and a really nice bloke too. 

For more like this on this subject (my favourite subject) here's some links to a two part series on Vagrancy  I did for Birdwatch:

THE PIONEERS

FATE OR FREE WILL?

The third wave

A high pressure south easterly swinging to north easterly has been a feature of the last couple of days which has jump started a bit of migration again. Despite the rather cool wind, temperatures got up to about 16 C this afternoon. This is the third noticeable push this year following the late Feb/early March spell, the big Tuesday last week and now this period.  I missed out yesterday as I had to work and Matt and I also did a day at the Lodge. There was a bit of wildfowl movement yesterday off the Bill including the year's first Garganey. 

Therefore I got up early and headed over the Bill to try and get in on it. It was not a bad move with a male Serin flying around for about 10 mins from 0630 and landed in the trees by Oval field for a bit too. Ian managed to get on it before it flew off into the village and other visiting birders also saw it later in the day. I also had a couple of grey geese which I didn't get enough on to identify for sure but they didn't look like Greylags and the photos suggest maybe Bean or Pinkfoot but the photos are just not good enough to be sure. There was also a few Pintail and Common Scoters moving and a trickle of Meadow Pipit passage with 44 up to 9am and I then had a few more going over Ferry. Ebird list and photos HERE.

I then went over to Ferry and walked up to the end of the Long Pool to view the harbour HERE. Highlight was five Ruff on Ferrry including four summer plumaged females found by Anthony the warden in addition to the usual winter plumage bird. A Spotted Redshank was in the Ferry Channel again and there were a couple of Avocet on Ferry too. 

So overall a nice little early Spring day. There were also Barnacle Geese found today on the Peninsula. All of today's news as always on the excellent local blog HERE. 

As usual I like to compare what's going on round here to other migrations spots and my old inland patches. We seem to be doing better round here than last early Spring for migrants but there is some crazy stuff going on in Oxfordshire with this absolute inland mega Ringed-billed Gull HERE and then this American Wigeon turned up HERE and now there's a Green-winged Teal with the American Wigeon. Meanwhile Jaffa found a Bonaparte's Gull at his patch HERE. The kind of US invasion which is most welcome- hope we get a strike here! 

Male Serin flying around and perched up at the Bill (above and below). The earliest ever Spring record for the Peninsula. 

Pintail on the move

Sandwich Tern

Female summer plumaged Ruff on Ferry

Curlew (above) and Black-tailed Godwit (below) in the harbour

Grey geese sp (above and below). More pics HERE. I would have thought more silver grey on the upperwing would be visible for Greylag and also the necks look dark in most of the photos. Just not enough to make any conclusions IMO. 

Little Ring

A fresh south west wind was blowing today in overcast skies which brightened up a bit later in the day. I started the day off at the Bill with Ian and Andrew HERE. Highlights included 80 Brents moving east and 4 Great Northern Divers.

I then checked out Ferry which was pretty good with the year's first Little Ringed Plover, a Ruff, 5 Avocet, Green Sandpiper, 100 Golden Plover over Medmerry, 2 Lapwings (the only ones around) and 47 Black-tailed Godwits. Wildfowl numbers seemed quite a bit lower with only 35 Shoveler, a few Teal but still 100 Wigeon with another 200 in the harbour too. A short burst of Mipit movement at around 11am involved 52 birds flying north. 

I then went over to Pagham Spit, then East Side and finally over to Church Norton to attempt a harbour count. I made it 85 species of 2057 individuals HERE with highlights including 60 Brents still, 14 Red-breasted Mergansers in the harbour, the Spotted Redshank in White's Creek, 7 Barwits, Peregrine, Rock Pipit and still some good numbers of waders including 300 Dunlin, 158 Grey Plover and 60 Curlew. Most notable absentee today were Sandwich Terns and very small numbers of Med and Common Gulls (and Black-headeds for that matter). 

The Little Ring puts me on 137 for the local year. 

Little Ringed Plover and Golden Plover on Ferry

Small looking Blackwits. After the winter flock departed en masse, a few groups have been arrivng and moving through in the last couple of weeks 

Grey Plovers, Barwits and Turnstones

Dunlins, Grey Plovers, Barwit and Knot. Chat reckons 332 birds in this image which is broadly similar to what I estimated in the field which is good to calibrate my counts. 

Male (above) and female (below) Red-breasted Merganser- a little influx in the harbour today

Great Northern Divers off the Bill 

Welcome break

Despite a cold start and a northwest breeze today's weather was clear and the temperature picked up by the afternoon. Looks like the more windy and wet conditions return tomorrow so it was a nice break today. I popped out before the usual Saturday family proceedings started and checked out Ferry and the harbour from the end of the Long Pool HERE. The Ferry field was lively with a Ruff, Green Sandpiper, over 50 Black-tailed Godwits, 2 Curlew, 4 Redshank, 3 Lapwing, 1 Snipe, 2 Avocet and 2 Oystercatcher and there was a Greenshank and a Spotted Redshank in the Ferry Channel. A Weasel was running along the Long Pool footpath which was nice to see. 

In the afternoon I popped out again and went to Church Norton to twitch the female Wheatear that the Vicar had found this morning. Ebird list HERE. Luckily the Wheatear was still there and also four Slavonian Grebes were off shore (presumably the same birds from last week that Ian saw earlier in the day too). Now on 136 for the local year list. It was quite a gap since my last 'summer migrant' with Sand Martin on 28th Feb, Swallow on 2nd March and now Wheatear on 14th so nearly a two week gap between new summer migrants after an early start.

Female Wheatear- my first for the year. I think the first time my first for the year has been a female rather than a male.

Ruff

Seemingly more Blackwits around today with an increase to around 50 birds on the Ferry field including this colour ringed bird below

Reed Buntings along Long Pool were singing away in the bright conditions

The Cattle Egret was in the field opposite our house this afternoon

Raven at Church Norton

Weasel (above and below)

Winter bites back

The temperature is set to get to around 4 C tonight and the wind is a cool westerly with a bit of north in it. Yesterday was really windy and felt cold.  I didn't bother putting the moth trap out in such cold night temperatures and bird migration has slowed right down on the Peninsula. 

Wednesday night was the last relatively mild evening with about 20 individual moths with the first Red Chestnut of the year. Stuck on 23 species of moth in the garden for the year. 

A noc-mig session on 10th March was pretty lean with highlights including Oystercatcher, Teal, Coot and Redwings HERE. 

With demoralising field conditions I've got on with work,  bits in the garden, updating some databases, getting the latest Dutch Birding paper to advance draft stage, reading and doing a bit of music. 

Very slow going and looking forward to the next wave of migration- Tuesday looks promising- just as I have to head back up to London. 

Red Chestnut (above) and Chestnut (below) 

Twin-spot Quaker

Dotted Border- quite a few of these this Spring 

Battening Down

A deep and moderate southwest wind is blowing at the moment which has put the knackers on migration again. Seems like the exodus on Tuesday was a small window which a lot of birds took advantage of. By the looks of it the forecast suggests the wind is shifting to the north west on the weekend before a deep westerly develops. Things are looking more interesting by the middle of next week with some warmer southerly air again but for the next few days it doesn't look very promising so seems like a good time to get out with other things round the lodge.

This post HERE from mid-February seems slightly prophetic now in light of recent global events. The historic swings in oil prices will certainly disrupt global supply lines which will result in inflationary pressure. This situation also has the potential to generate a catastrophic economic impact if the Straits of Hormuz are not open soon and things could deepen if the Houthis in Yemen resurrect pressure on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Some commentators suggest that only a ground invasion and occupation of all the land and sea around the Straits of Hromuz by the Zionist-American forces will secure the Straits and if things escalate to that the entire global economy could have a heart attack - almost overnight, as a result of rocketing oil prices and the resulting hyperinflation and crash of equity markets. 

Of course the greatest concern here is the people who are physically caught up in this violent conflict, wider financial concerns pale into insignificance compared to what they are going through. Disconnecting from the Zionist-western matrix and building a personal nature centric sustainable system arond themselves is the best way any individual can help others IMO. At the end of the day it is the mass compliance with these unsustainable, ecocidal and murderous systems which provides the power for them to limp on into the abyss so disconnecting and building a personal system that connects to a new emerging sustainable human and nature centric system (AI has the potential to help create this) is the best response IMO.

As ever nobody knows what is going to happen next but personally I can't see how there will be a quick end to this war. Israel have waited over 40 years for a US President who is mad enough to attack Iran (my accountant calls him the Mad King) and there will never be such a maverick figure in power to try again so Israel know they only have this chance to fulfill their objectives of dominating the Middle East. There seems zero possibility that Israel will now stop- this is their one and only chance. The US may be powerless to pull out of the war as any escalation by Israel will result in retaliation by Iran on US bases and global infrastructure - President Kennedy's remark that 'If you ride on the back of the Tiger you end up in its belly' appears to be coming true (although not sure who the Tiger is here - I think they could all eat each other!) . There also appears to be zero possibility of Iran surrendering- the new Ayatollah has just had his father, wife and children murdered by the Zionist-US forces and there is no sign of any populist uprising. This could all be a black hole which has already opened that soon everything is going to be pulled into. Maybe. Maybe not. One thing for certain is that this is an extremely dangerous situation which could plunge the world into chaos and cause mass asset stripping of citizens and transfer of wealth in the ongoing emergence of Global AI-fuedalism (for good and bad). 

Considering we are teetering on the brink of economic chaos (although we often are and if often passes without too much trouble) and also that bird migration has slowed down, I thought I would take a bit of time to build up some more of our self sufficiency, off-grid capabilities and personal resilience. All these things make economic and personal wellbeing sense and help to reconnect closer to nature in order to buffer any system shocks even if they are never  'needed' and the shocks never come. Personally I find it all helps with managing 'planetary stress'. Also there are the opportunities of a life time during economic collapses so it is vital to always be prepared to be in a position to take those opportunities, to stay calm and immediately get to work on any necessary rebuild and build back better.  

Therefore in order to increase our 'personal defences', this week we are increasing our water storage and water harvesting capabilites, building up the logs piles, filling up our cupboards with non perishable food supplies (also makes sense to buy now before inflationary pressure hits), buying some new books to read (below), planting up more of the food growing beds, taking out a bit of cash, making any large purchases now ahead of inflationary risk (this year travel bookings etc), keeping vehicles tanks full rather than running them to empty,  and planting up more wildlife garden habitat so that if we have a fuel shortage and supply line lockdown having plenty of birds and wildlife in the garden will be good company to hide out with.  

A few new purchases. The Portland report has been out for a while but Kojak had my copy which I got last weekend. A brilliant read- covers a four year period. Great to compare patterns with whats going on round here.  Pan-species listing by Graeme Lyons is a great addition to a personal resilience strategy and getting the most out of local nature (I'll be doing more pan-species work in our garden this year- I find the garden is a large enough area for my small brain!). I've also bought Birding with AI. When I was at uni they used to say text books were always at least two years out of date. For computer science I presume it means this book is an epoch out of date but if I can try and keep up with any of this stuff it will be useful- considering most of the stuff I do is simple approach citizen science anyway. Just knowing how the popular recording platforms work a bit is interesting and my main goal is to learn how to use AI to not only assist with recording systems but to write bird reports and simple population trend analysis and distributions  (basically bird book style science).  

Whooper Swan Twitch

It was a work day in London today. I was up at 4am to leave by 5am and had 11 clients to meet and also had a meeting with the accountant and a personal visit to my mum too - so it was a busy schedule. As I left the house there were Redwings going over and there was a light south westerlies with overcast skies. By 7am as I arrived at my mums Paul Bowley reported Brents moving off Selsey Bill and it was basically at that point I realised that I had probably left the Peninsula on the first big migration wave of the Spring. Sure enough the news kept coming in through the morning with over 1500 Brents moving East off the Bill (there were 5500 off Dungeness), a few Wheatears at various sites and an incredible flock of 6 Whooper Swans were found by Les in White's Creek. Birdguides also reported a Spoonbill and there were three White-fronted Geese with the Whoopers and more birds moving off the Bill. All the news from today HERE.

I did my best to get round all my appointments as swiftly as possible and then headed back south to try and catch up with some of today's action. I managed to get to Church Norton by about 5pm with an hour or so of light left. The Whoopers were still present but distant on North Wall viewable from the Benches and the Brent Goose passage had resumed and Andrew and I had about 500 moving east (also distantly). There were also 3 Greenshanks and 3 Bar-tailed Godwits out on the mud. So managed to witness some of the magical vis-mig today and also scored the big ones so a little bit of a recovery. 

Whooper Swans off North Wall (for decent photos see HERE)

Brents on the move in the evening

Greenshanks