The third wave

A 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.