I think last week was a good call- I should have been on Corvo HERE and indeed a Prothonotary Warbler and a few other american vagrants were found and the decision to go twitching was also a good one considering not much else was found anywhere else. Also predicting common bird migration in the light westerly windows came good this week with lots of good vis mig.
So here goes for this week. Tomorrow a period of light westerlies continues so it's back on the vis mig (or twitching Beddington if this local mega is re-found (SEE HERE). From early next week a warm blast of air comes up from the south which could be good for moth migration and southern vagrants so I'm heading to Portland. By the end of the week the wind is coming from the far north so I'll probably be heading indoors for that!
A westerly airflow (but maybe broken) continues to affect the Azores so who knows what can happen out there- the late autumn could bring in later migrating American species. I'm UK bound now due to family commitments so will have to enjoy the show remotely.
Usual caveats apply- it's October, anything can turn up any time any where and there is a lot more to vagrancy and migration than just weather (See Birdwatch articles HERE and HERE) but weather is one of the concentrating mechanisms that can increase the odds of finding something but as ever and always there is no better method than blanket cover/ carpet bombing with large numbers of observers.
2 comments:
Thanks as ever for your post. I was not aware of your 2017 posts on vagrancy, which are stimulating.
Peter, has there been any studies of gender in vagrants? Consider that female chimpanzees are known to trek to the edge of their known territory to mate with males of different troops.
I wouldn't proclaim to know the evolutionary advantage of exploratory vagrancy in the autumn, but perhaps there is a gender bias in seasonal vagrancy.
Thank you and kind regards.
That is a very interesting question. A lot of vagrants are first calendar year birds and not always easy to specify gender so it would be a challenging question to answer but certainly worth exploring further .
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