Weekend Wrap

Considering how much birding potential there is at the moment (there's Pallas's Warblers and Pallid Swifts seemingly everywhere) I neglected my responsibilites this weekend and got in a few birding sessions. Started off with a garden session yesterday morning HERE the highlights being 3 cracking Firecrests in the Lane, nearly 1000 Woodpigeons going over, a single Brambing, a Raven overhead, a Golden Plover and a Curlew over and 6 Egyptian Geese. The Tawny Owl was calling before dawn too.

I then walked to Ferry and walked along the tramway looking for a Pallas's Warbler but no luck but had more Woodpigeons still going over (another 700) , two Crossbills, a couple of Yellowhammer and a Rock Pipit off of Ferry HERE. 

A Pallas's Warbler was found at the Severals shortly after found by Ian and Marc but I had to wait until this morning to give it a bash. Couldn't find it this morning but had a nice group of six Crossbills go low over (including some red males), a Dartford Warbler, a few more Firecrests and a few Redpolls and Siskins HERE.

A few sound recordings below including the Crossbills, Siskin and the Rock Pipit off Ferry. I'm still looking for Water Pipit locally and trying to get to grips with the call- as can be seen in the Rock Pipit sonogram below the call is very shrill exceeding 8Khz with increasing pitches at stages unlike Water Pipit which is slightly less shrill and the first peak is often the same pitch as the following. The Crossbill calls that I recorded are quite low (can range from 2.5-5.5khz) at around 4Khz - could get lost in vis-mig as Linnets or Greenfinch when chattering like this. 

Plenty of migrants in the moth trap yesterday morning with 29 Rusty-dots, a Blair's Mocha, Olive-tree Pearl, Dewick's Plusia, Silver-Y and the first Diamond-back in a while being the highlights.  Not so many migrants in the trap this morning but the first Brick of the year. 

The weather forecast for this week looks very interesting again with a strong southerly airflow from Tuesday coinciding with thunderstorms over the Sahara mid-week with widespread sand across western Europe so presumably more moth migrants, Pallid Swifts and Desert Wheatears on the cards. I'll get out as much as I can this week. 

Firecrests in the Lane

Stonechat and Dartford Warbler at the Severals 

Still about six Chiffchaffs at Norton

The Brents are getting in the field behind the Church again

Blair's Mocha

Brick

Getting a few of these which I presume are Blastobasis vittata

Moth trapping at Little Oak Lodge