21st and 22nd August
A glorious day on the 21st with pretty much
wall to wall sunshine with a light NW wind which had swung round into the east
by the afternoon; landbird passage was still slow with 5 Willow Warblers the
only grounded migrants while other counts included the 4 Collared Doves still,
14 Sand Martins, 73 Swallows, 196 Meadow Pipits and single Sparrowhawk and
Merlin whizzing around.
Grey Plover, George Gay
Some
decent wader counts comprised 1,312 Golden Plover, a Grey Plover still, 41
Purple Sandpipers, 28 Black-tailed Godwits, 22 Bar-tailed Godwits, a Whimbrel,
153 Redshank, a Greenshank and an autumn high count so far of 342 Turnstone
along with 4 Herons and 2 Red-throated Divers while the one that got away was a
large raptor sp. seen over Stennabreck into the sun which was probably a Common
Buzzard but views were inconclusive.
With
the wind now firmly in the east expectations began to grow on the 22nd
but the fine weather that came with it didn’t equate to many more migrants with
10 Willow Warblers the highlight. A
disappointingly quiet day also produced single Merlin, Peregrine and
Sparrowhawk, 33 Black-tailed Godwits on Gretchen and best of all, a good pod of
7 Risso’s Dolphins playing around off the west coast.
Risso's Dolphin, George Gay
Peregrine, Simon Davies
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