Work Winds

It's north westerlies this  week which is about the safest time in the autumn (if based in the south UK) to get on with collecting tokens from the matrix. The night temperatures have dropped to 6 C so I'm not even bothering putting the moth lights out every night. 

So it's been a good opportunity to catch up with work and get on with stuff around the new house and garden. This week I've ordered the 200 hedgerow trees for the garden boundary (a mix of Hawthorn, Wild Cherry, Wild Plum, Blackthorn and Rowan for the back and Privet and Dog Rose for the front) and Matt and I completed filling up the raised beds with top soil yesterday. Might plant up some autumn Spinach and Garlic as not much else to plant this time of year. Jimmy is back later to extend the useable space in the loft and fit a loft ladder and Skinners are coming later on today to erect a shed next to the garden office. Holly's finished painting the garden office and I've more or less moved all the books and mini zoo in now too.

I'm still trying to order the pond liner for the wildlife pond in Bulgaria but no joy so far- was planning on a working week there in early October but not sure what's happening now. 

It was a pretty quiet week at work in London so I got a chance to catch up with some birding writing- finished editing a couple of articles for Dutch Birding and also done a first round of commenting on the draft of an exciting new book about American vagrants in the WP.

Looking forward to some more exciting birding weather- southerlies are returning on Saturday which could get moth migration going again but can't see much on the horizon of disruptive conditions for birds but as always you never know.

Before it got too cold there were still a few moth migrants on Sunday night (a nice little selection in about 175 moths of 41 species)- unfortunately I didn't pick up any Small Mottled Willows that I was hoping might find their way here from the east coast.

This well marked Vestal was only the second one I've had here 

A nice bit of variation in Scarce Bordered Straws (above and below) 

Pink-barred Sallow was an NFG- garden list now on 360

The Garden Office finished

Got the nature book library set up inside the office and the mini zoo

Isaac helping out 

The completed raised beds

Steady little weekend

The easterly airflow that caused a major fall of birds and moths on the east coast (and a smaller fall locally) switched to a light southerly here by Saturday morning. A juvenile Sabine's Gull was off the Bill HERE at around 7am for 20 mins but by the time I got there it had already drifted off. A bit of a big local dip as it's a species that only occurs once or twice a decade here. There was a bit of vis mig over the bill with 16 Tree Pipit and 18 Yellow Wagtail in the short time I was there and there were also 5 Black Terns and a dark phase Arctic Skua feeding off shore in the feeding flock off Hillfield Road.

In the afternoon I checked Ferry Pool, a couple of Spotted Redshanks there and then had another go at looking for the Sabine's Gull off Hillfield Road. Just a Wheatear there. It was more or the less the same species at Mill Lane Marsh as the previous day, the highlight being the really nice juvenile Barwit feeding with the juv Blackwits again. A Hobby flew over the marsh. 

Back home I had a quick check of the lane, once again the bulk of the hirundines on the peninsula seem to be in the fields between here and Medmerry with about 300-400 hawking over the fields. A Tree Pipit flew out of the oaks in the morning there when I was doing the moths.

The weather was similar this morning, a light southerly and cloudy skies.  I had a look round Church Norton. Migrants/highlights HERE included the Red-backed Shrike again, 9 Pintail over, 15 Wigeon flushed by an Osprey that was hunting in the harbour, a Spot Fly in the church and pretty good numbers of warblers including 15+ Chiffchaff, 3 Willow Warbler, 8 Blackcap, 5 Whitethroat and 3 Goldcrests. A Meadow Pipit overhead was my first of the autumn and a Black Tern flew over ahead of a rain shower. 

All the moth migrant action seems to be occurring on the East coast at the moment with unprecedented numbers of Small Mottled Willows (200-300 at single sites) and a couple of Many-lines and Silver-spotted Veneers in the north east.  Overall pretty quiet here, a Blackneck was the latest addition to the garden list (now on 359) and there's been a few regular migrants species with up to 5 Delicates, a couple of Radfords, a few Portland Ribbon Waves and single Dark Spectacle, Four-spotted Footman and L-album Wainscot in addition to the more expected (in small numbers) Rush Veneers, Rusty-dot Pearls, Silver-Ys, the odd Diamond-back, Dark Sword Grass, Angle Shades and White-points.

The most prominent lepidoptera migrant recently are Red Admirals- hundreds are moving through Kent and round here there are small numbers more or less everywhere e.g. 15-20 this morning at Church Norton, 3-4 in the garden and about 10-15 along Selsey high street this afternoon. Also had a Painted Lady feeding with Red Ads on Buddleia in the high street.  

 

Adult male Red-backed Shrike 

Pintail over

Wheatear at the Bill (finally got the classic shot of one on the bill house roofs)

Willow Warbler- being well outnumbered by Chiffchaffs now

Black Tern off the Bill- about 7-8 in the area this weekend 

Juvenile Barwit and Juvenile Blackwit

The smartest Blair's Mocha I've had 

A nice fresh Radford's Flame Shoulder 

Getting up to 8-9 Portland Ribbon Waves on several nights recently. I noticed on the Portland blog that we seem to have more round here than they do at Portland which is interesting. 

Feathered Gothic- up to five a night recently 

Blackneck 

Red Admirals (above and below)- more or less everywhere at the moment including landing on cars and gathering around Buddleias and flowering garden plants 

.....and meanwhile inside the house in the mini-zoo our Asian Fawn Tarantula has been sitting out in the open recently for the first time in two years- we can go literally months without seeing this. 

Red-backed Shrike, Pagham Harbour

As the weather was looking promising for today I did all my work yesterday so that I could spend all day in the field today. A great little day.

I started off at Ferry Pool where 7 Barnacle Geese (or hybrids as there has been a group of Barnacle x Cackling geese around from Arundel WWT) flew over at first light and 2 juvenile Ruffs were just visible in the poor light. It then started raining heavily so I joined Andrew & Co at the Bill for a seawatch (from the van), not much moving but plenty of Sandwich Terns around and 3 Common Scoter were off shore. Then it was over to Church Norton where Andrew found a first-winter Pied Flycatcher and I had my first Goldcrest of the autumn and soon after news broke of a Red-backed Shrike that had been found nearby at the Horsefield. 

Surprisingly the shrike was a stonking adult male rather than an expected young bird and it showed really well in what had now become a constant light rain.

I then checked out Mill Lane Marsh (highlights were 2 Greenshank, 3 Shoveler, 8 juvenile Blackwits and a juvenile Barwit) and then met up with Holly for lunch.

In the afternoon I went back to Ferry at high tide where 115 Redshank, 2 Spotted Redshanks and 12 Knot were roosting and then back to Church Norton. Large numbers of Med Gulls were concentrating in the fields and on the sea- 350 was a conservative estimate. The Red-backed Shrike was still there and there were 3 Wheatears on the broken concrete and about 250 House Martins flying around the Severals and Bluebell Woods hunted by a Hobby and later a Sparrowhawk. There were also two Swifts about. 

I met up with Andrew again and on the way back we had an Osprey fly west along the beach- a nice end to a cracking little day. Ebird list HERE (morning highlights) and HERE (full pm log). 

Adult male Red-backed Shrike 

First-winter Pied Flycatcher

Juvenile Barwit

Knot on Ferry Pool- not a frequent visitor to the pool 

Juvenile Blackwit and Adult Spotted Redshank

Med Gulls 

Osprey

Vagrants ahead

 

Weather chart for end of this week (Friday) looks promising for eastern vagrants. Not only is there a deep easterly airflow across Europe from Thursday but there is a warm front moving across the north sea over night on Thursday which should act as a scythe concentrating migrants long the front. Should be good in the Northern Isles and East coast for vagrants from far and drift migrants from nearer and with a front like that crossing land could also drop waders and terns etc at inland sites. 

Might get some peripheral effect down on the south coast (seems like moth migrants can get blown right across and onto the south coast even in easterlies) and in the aftermath and following days might get some trickle down. Fingers crossed. Will update this post later in week to see how this prediction pans out.  

070924 update- pretty much bang on prediction with waders and terns across land (e.g. Arctic Skua, 8 Little Tern and 7 Common Scoter at Farmoor on Thursday, Sandwich Tern at Beddington today and lots of terns across inland sites) and also huge falls of drift migrants on the east coast on Friday (including a Red-backed Shrike, Pied Fly and Wheatears here at Pagham). However no stand out vagrant on the bird front (so got that wrong) but there was also good moth migration on the east coast including a couple of Many-lines which are mega moths. 

Incoming insects

The south winds, night temperature low of 17 C and weak frontal conditions did the trick last night with what appears to be a large arrival of insects on the south coast e.g. about 180 individual moths of approx 12 migrant species at Portland,100s of moth migrants in Kent and admins of the Migrant Lepidoptera Facebook page reporting their best night of the summer/autumn etc HERE. 

Here there was a good selection of moths, about 250-300 individuals of approx 60 species and quite a few (suspected) migrants including  2 Blair's Mocha, 5 Dark Sword Grass, 4 Olive-tree Pearl, 2 Four-spotted Footman, 2 Silver-Y, 1 Pearly Underwing, 1 Radford's Flame Shoulder,  9 Portland Ribbon Wave, 12 European Corn Borer, 1 Delicate, 6 Rusty-dot Pearl, 1 Dark Spectacle, 35 White-points and tens of Large Yellow Underwings and Setaceous Hebrew Characters (which may also have involved migrants). Highlights here were several new for gardens including Marbled Fern, Musotima nitidalis which unfortunately flew off before I got a record shot, Silky Wainscot, Rosy Knot-horn, 2 Feathered Gothics, Mottled Rustic and a Ruddy Streak. Garden list now on 358 (can't count the Fern as no evidence). There was probably other interesting bits in the traps but the presence of about 100 wasps and 10 hornets was disturbing all the insects and making them fly off and also it was difficult for me to process them all without getting stung. 

In addition to the moths I also had a Migrant Hawker in the trap, lots of small beetles and shield bugs and elsewhere others had migrant butterflies too, so overall quite a mass movement of all insects last night by looks of it. 

Another Greenshank over the garden this morning. 

Unfortunately I'm away working for the next two nights so going to miss out on what happens next in this influx. 

Silky Wainscot

Rosy Knot-horn 

Blair's Mocha

Migrant Hawker 

Easterlies

Been two or three days of an easterly airflow with a north east brisk wind and overcast skies turning round to a south easterly yesterday afternoon with a breezy sunny day today. Drift migrants and scarce migrants have started appearing on the east coast, seabirds have been blown into the Thames and there has been heavy hirundine passage on the south coast (e.g. 2000 Swallows an hour through Portland) and its been good for seabirds too (a Sooty Shearwater was the highlight locally). It also seems to have been good for moth migrants on the south coast (which seems a bit odd during a brisk northeasterly).

My dad visited on Friday, Steve and Trish are visiting today and as it's the last few days of summer holiday I've been swerving in some birding in between Normanising. Highlights have included good hirundine numbers over the fields towards Medmerry (must have been easily 1000 hawking yesterday evening, mainly Sand Martins), a Greenshank over the garden on Friday, daily Yellow Wagtails over the garden (15 last night) and a visit to Ferry Pool and Church Norton yesterday evening produced 55 species in 3 hours including a juv Merlin, my first autumn Wigeons and 4 nice Wheatears along the spit. Ebird list HERE. Apart from the Redstart last week I'm not seeing Flycatchers and chats on the estate or around the garden even though they have been widely seen across the Peninsula - seems to be really good round here for hirundines and wagtails but seems like other habitats/areas nearby are preferred for other migrants. 

On the moth migrant front, last night was the best with male and female Gem (NFG), 4 Delicate, 4 Olive-tree Pearl, 1 Pearly Underwing, 5 Rush Veneer, 2 Rusty-dot Pearl, 4 Dark Sword Grass, 1 Diamond-back moth, 6 Angle Shades, 5 Portland Ribbon Wave, 1 Radford's Flame Shoulder and 4 Dark Spectacle were also presumably migrants. A Scarce-bordered Straw among other common migrants on previous nights was the only additional migrant species to last nights haul. The first Centre-barred Sallow of the year heralds in the autumn. In addition to the migrants there was overall a good selection of species for early September with approx 250 of 76 species. Garden moth list is now on 354 (not all verified). 

Adult male Wheatear (above and below) 

First-winter/female Wheatear

Adult male Wheatear

Juvenile Stonechat 

Wigeon out in the harbour- winter is coming 

Centre-barred Sallow- autumn is here 

I went for Chamomile Conch, Cochylidia implicitana ?

Pearly Underwing

Male Gem 

Dark Spectacle- four of these last nights suggests they might be migrants (not had many here before)

Family trips this week included a visit to Marwell Zoo (a really good zoo with species like Okapi, Addax, Long-nosed Potoroo, Visayan warty pig, Red River Hog, Bokiboky, White-faced Saki and Snow and Clouded Leopards) and Arundel Wetland Centre (Ebird list HERE). Also had this Pike in one of the rifes (above).  We had our first Common frog in the new pond and there are also Giant Diving Beetles, smaller water beetles and whirly beetles presumably feeding on the mosquito larvae which has appeared too. Almost finished filling up the new raised beds and after we clear out the loft on Wednesday from the Old Beddington Obs the Library/Garden Office should be complete. Garden bird feeders have been up for a while but we added a tall feeding platform (reduced from £300 to £30 because the 'house' was broken which was handy as we only wanted the platform anyway) today to try and attract kestrels and owls. Looking forward to planting out the garden this winter (about an acre) in order to create some migrant habitat. 

Spent this afternoon at Church Norton beach , Steve got the boat out and did a bit of fishing but not much biting (just a small Sea Bass and a Mackerel that got away). About 20 Sandwich Tern, 5 Common Tern and some Sand Martins and Swallows moving west while we were there. By about three o'clock the winds had reorientated to a southerly/ south westerly which could be good for moth migrants tonight.