Estaca de Bares- Seawatching

I arrived at Porto, Portugal on Sunday night (30th August) and met up with Vincent Legrand and Rene-marie Lafontaine and we drove through the night to Estaca de Bares in Galicia, Spain. After a very uncomfortable very short sleep in the car we went on to complete a 13 hour seawatch HERE. We also did another 10 hour seawatch on Monday (1st) HERE and finally a morning seawatch on 2nd HERE.

Highlights over the three days and 25 hours of seawatching included an adult South Polar Skua (lifer), a Deserta's/Zino's Petrel, 1 Wilson's Storm Petrel, 2 Sabine's Gull, 1 Grey Phalarope, 2 Barolo Shearwater, 1 Scopoli's Shearwater, 71 Sooty Shearwater, 57 Balearic Shearwater, 7500 Manx Shearwater, 300 Cory's Shearwater, 47 Long-tailed Skua, 46 Pomarine Skuas, 59 Arctic Skua and 21 Great Skua.

It was basically the best seawatch ever. Good times! 

Deserta's/Zino's Petrel (above and below) 

Juvenile Long-tailed Skua (above and below) 

Adult Poms (above three images)

Great Skua

Manx Shearwaters (above and below). At peak there were over 3000 an hour going past

Balearic Shearwater

Sooty Shearwater

Cory's Shearwater

Common Dolphins (above and below) 

Male Black Redstart

Bocage's Wall Lizard (lifer)

Estaca de Bares Seawatchers. Quite a challenge getting onto everything with most directions and bird names in Spanish but we managed with the help of Antonio. 

Views east of the Galician coastline 

Weekend round-up

It was a wet and windy Saturday and we had my dad's 80th birthday party in the afternoon so not much recording done apart from a bit of garden birding and the moth trap. A nice little bit of vis-mig over the garden HERE with a Tree Pipit, 21 Yellow Wagtails west and 57 'Pied' Wagtails going south (but presumably roost birds heading out). Another Small Marbled in the trap was the highlight from the trap. 

This morning I logged 37 species from the garden HERE with a few migrants including 27 Yellow Wagtails west, 2 Blackcap, 1 Chiffchaff, 10 House Martins, 10 Swallows, 4 Sand Martins, a single Swift flying around and the autumn's first garden Meadow Pipit going west. The moth trap was pretty quiet. 

The stormy weather locally has produced a few Mediterranean Shearwaters and a few storm blown terns including Roseate and Black. 

I'm off to Spain later today for a bit of seawatching from Estaca de Bares and some exploring so that's about it for this weekend.

My dad at 80. He took me to Pagham Harbour in 1985 and I started my first birding notebook that nowadays is this blog. 

Westerlies

A westerly airflow resumed yesterday bringing with it some rain yesterday morning. Unfortunately I've been working today and yesterday but got back from London yesterday in time for a quick session at Church Norton HERE and this morning I abandoned my post and did a couple of hours on East Side with the rising tide HERE. Highlights included a Black Tern off Church Norton beach yesterday evening, a first-winter Yellow-legged Gull there too (with immense numbers of gulls in feeding flocks, I estimated at least 5000 birds) , 3 Spotted Flycatchers by the hide and still good numbers of Yellow Wagtails with about 50 birds mainly around the tern islands. It was prety quiet on East side this morning with very few small waders but a good count of 234 Redshank and an increase in wildfowl numbers with 10 Wigeon, 8 Pintail, 12 Teal and 2 Gadwall. 

In the afternoon today I popped in to Halseys and Church Norton to twitch the Redstarts. 

The main change with the change of wind as been the exodus of hirundines with just a few tens around, down from thousands in the week. Yellow Wagtails have also reduced a lot too. Also the small waders (Ringed Plovers and Dunlins) were more or less absent from the harbour (down from nearly 500 in the week). 

There seem to be plenty of birders out this morning with lots of reports. The passerine migrants seem to be trickling in still with 4 Redstarts today, Pied Fly, more Spot Flys, Wheatears and Whinchat on the Peninsula today and there are new Ruff and Curlew Sandpiper at Snowhill today.  The strengthening south west wind by the afternoon produced the autumn's first Balearic Shearwaters off the Bill. All the local news HERE.

The moth traps are ticking over , the year list now on 534. 54 species of approx 150 individuals last night. 

Spotted Flycatcher- quite a few around at the moment

Female Redstart, Halseys. Now on 180 for the local year. 

First-winter Yellow-legged Gull

Juvenile Bar-tailed Godwit with Whimbrels 

Black Tern off Church Norton

Wigeon, Pintail and Teal on East Side

Cattle Egrets Halseys

Another Small Marbled. Vestals continue their good run with four last night, also a couple of Delicates (also had a good run), 5 Portland Ribbon Wave, a couple of Dark Sword Grass, Silver-Y and Dewick's Plusia in the Ni-pheromone lure, Small Mottled Willow are right down in numbers now to single figures, also the odd Saltmarsh and Spindle Knot-horn, lingering Rosy Knot-horn, Yellow Belle are maintaining their daily showings with 3 last night and after a good run of Rush Veneer are now appearing in single figures. Rusty-dot and Diamond-backs have remained conspicously low key all autumn. Flounced Rustics numbers are now building. 

Dark bordered Pearl- another one of these too

Awesome August

There's a really nice diversity of bird migrants at the moment so yesterday and today I got to Church Norton at dawn to explore. August is such a great month for high diversity and abundance.

Yesterday HERE  in the continuing brisk south easterly the main spectale was about 600 Sand Martin and 100 Barn Swallows over the Norton Fields, with 61 Yellow Wagtail going west and Wheatear and Whinchat. Later in the day the hirundines concentrated and Andrew estimated about 2000 Sand Martin and 500 Barn Swallow in the fields (some great pics by Andrew HERE and HERE). 

Today, it was completely calm (with a southeast breeze later) and indeed the hirundines had taken advantage of the change in weather and seemingly all departed. However there were still lots of migrants around HERE with highlights including a juvenile Osprey hunting the harbour at high tide (179 for my Peninsula year), an incredible 138 Yellow Wagtail with 118 counted on the deck in the Norton fields at dawn, a Golden Plover in with the wagtails, 4 Wheatear, 3 Spotted Flycatcher, Garden Warbler, 15 Blackcap, 12 Whitethroat, 3 Willow Warbler and out on the mud there was the autumn's first juvenile Curlew Sandpiper, the juv Little Stint again, 12 Knot, 3 Greenshank, a Green Sandpiper over Greenlease Farm, the first Barwit in a while and the autumn's first pair of Wigeon were in the harbour with 3 Pintail and 6 Teal. 

In the afternoon I was supervising Jacob and his mates so did a skywatch which was pretty good HERE- had the Osprey go over again (or a different one), two juvenile Peregrines, a huge juv female Sparrowhawk and a Swift amongst the hirundines and Yellow Wags.

As it was so birdy today, I thought I would max out the time in the field so did Ferry and Long Pool HERE in the evening which was good too with 3 Whinchat, 4 Wheatear, another Spotted Flycatcher and a few other bits. 

The easterly airflow has certainly done it's magic. There's been quite a fall of drift migrants on the east coast today so hopefully things trickle down to here in the next few days. 

As I've been leaving the house before dawn I've just been flicking through the moth traps but not too much to report with background level of migrants. The trap was full of 1000s of beetles this morning. 

Juvenile Osprey at Church Norton. Aged by barred secondaries. By the looks of it a differnt bird to the Hunter's bird on Monday HERE andHERE which looks like an adult with plain dark secondaries.  

Juvenile Curlew Sandpiper and Dunlin

Yellow Wagtail- the migrant of the moment with birds constantly calling over head from more or less everywhere on the Peninsula . Listen to the calling of the 100 +  birds on the deck below. 

Spotted Flycatcher in a swarm of flies. There were three birds together hitting this swarm.

The first returning autumn Wigeon for the harbour (there were a few past the bill yesterday)

Pintails 

Adult Golden Plover 

Whitethroat. A noticeable increase in warblers today although there were relatively few Willow Warblers. 

Eleven Grey Herons were in the harbour including a group of six that came in from the east. There was a flock off the Bill recently too so presumably migrants.

Juv Peregrine and Sparrowhawk (below) over the garden

I think these are Bradycellus verbasci (the apps and me are not sure). There were literally thousands of them in the traps. 

Yellow Wagtails in Norton Fields. Over 100 birds present

Some distinct variation in calls in this sample and birds calling with a Golden Plover (below) 

August easterly

There was a strong southeast wind today which was unusual. I decided to do East Side as I knew this would be sheltered from the wind. It didn't pick up until mid-morning and there were a few Yellow Wagtails and a Tree Pipit going over first thing. With a 0915 four meter high tide I wasn't expecting too much as a four meter high tide rarely covers all the mud but with the surge it was okay and moved a lot of the harbour birds around. I bumped into Paul Bowley (the Pom King) and had 75 species in about 4 hours of over 5500 individuals HERE. The numbers were made up by a large gull feeding flock at Pagham Spit and also a significant increase in Dunlin and Ringed Plover numbers in the harbour with 274 and 200 respectively. The eclipse male Pintail was in the channel, as were 3 Spotted Redshanks, with 8 Greenshank around and most unsual was a juvenile Little Ringed Plover hiding amongst the Ringed Plovers (not an association on salt marsh I have seen before). There was also a couple of Snipe, 11 Knot and the first Marsh Harrier I've seen for many weeks. 

The Hunters found a couple of Little Stints at Norton so I drove over there after breakfast and located a juvenile. Unfortunately I still haven't caught up with the Osprey that keeps appearing in the harbour (the Hunters had it today too).

Now that Gareth James has merged all the Ebird hotspots into the 'Pagham Harbour RSPB Reserve and LNR- Pagham Harbour area' super hotspot, a nice Pagham Harbour 2026 Ebird annual report is emerging HERE. 171 species recorded this year by the community with some great patterns and trends appearing in the bar charts and even more interesting patterns by deep diving into the data. A few examples in the captions below. 

The moth trap was pretty quiet with highlights including 2 unseasonal Blacknecks and a Garden Pebble. I've got a problem with the electics on my MV which I need to sort out so down to the twin actinic and lepiled now. On 533 moths for the year at the moment which is set to slow right down from here on. A final heatwave for the summer  would be good especially after a bit more rain. 

Holly's friend Christine stayed for a couple of days but is now back on the road (she is a campervan nomad).  

Juv Little Ringed Plover (left) in with the Ringed Plovers. The recent influx in Ringed Plovers is shown well HERE

Juvenile Little Stint (left) with Dunlin and Ringed Plover

The eclipse male Pintail with Great Crested Grebe and one of the head-started Curlews

Grey Plover and Knot- a recent influx in Grey Plover.  Autumn flucutations shown in this graph HERE. There were also a few noteable absentees today including Black-tailed and Bar-tailed Godwit and Avocet which all seem to have moved on. 

I estimated about 3000 mixed gulls out in the harbour mouth- it was too windy to go through them properly. After the breeding season was over Black-headed Gulls were around in relatively low numbers but today there was major influx HERE. Possibly continental birds moving in on the easterly? 

There were approx 400 Sand Martins, many sitting out on the islands in the harbour. Relatively very few Sand Martins come through the Peninsula in Spring but in autumn they are abundant. e.g. see this year's graphs HERE. 

Juvenile Whimbrel- after the adult movements in July and early August the waders are now dominated by juveniles, particularly in the Dunlin flock.  Whimbrel Spring passage is generally much more significant than the autumn passage, e.g see this years numbers HERE. 

Juvenile Turnstone. Turnstone trends in Pagham Harbour for this year HERE. 

The most interesting thing in the moth traps last night were these Night-flying Dung Beetles. Another new species for the garden. Now on over 400 pan-species HERE (not including leps, dragonflies, mammals and birds which are recorded seperately).