16th November

The never ending Autumn continues (not that we're complaining!) with blustery easterlies again seeing large numbers of birds sheltering on the leeward coast. The day's highlight though was a duck, with a less than annual (but 3rd this year) drake Goosander on Gretchen for a few minutes early morning. After yesterday's single it looks like we're on for another Tundra Bean Goose influx, 6 today began with a pair in fields east of Holland House followed by a group of 4 more near the Observatory in the evening. Mirroring the last, 2011 influx they were joined by 2 (adult) European White-fronted Geese on the west coast but bucking the trend was a juvenile Greenland White-fronted Goose in the company of the first 2 Bean's. There were also 58 Pink-footed Geese still, plus 14 Woodcocks, a Jack Snipe, 647 Herring and 109 Great black-backed Gulls. More waves of Thrushes seemed to arrive, with increased counts of 281 Blackbirds, 24 Song Thrushes and 210 Redwings while Fieldfare numbers reduced to 147. A couple of  Short eared Owls were on the west coast and other passerines included 2 Black Redstarts, 21 Robins, 2 Blackcaps and 4 Common Redpolls-the later at least were definitely new.

Goosander-one day the sun will come out!!

 

And almost as bad-2 of today's Tundra Bean Geese