4th-9th November
With things slowing down for the season and staff members moving into different accommodation for the winter things have been much more low key on the birding front but it hasn't been without highlights and the 9th saw an unpredicted fall that had us back out in the field trying to find a late Autumn gem!
Highlights have been very few and far between in the run up to the 9th. The only real birds of note have been a juvenile Iceland Gull at Brides on the 4th, a female Sparrowhawk was present in Holland on the 6th and 7th and the long-staying Buzzard was seen on the 7th and 8th. The 8th saw us add Scaup to the year list with a 1st year drake sat on Bewan with 7 Tufted Duck.
The 6th was also a special day for two of the obs staff, it was time for Rael and Sara to get married, a small party in the observatory in the evening was a lovely way to congratulate the newly-weds and we wish them all the best going forward.
The 9th came out of nowhere a little bit despite us thinking the forecast had looked good a few days previous. A fall of Blackbirds saw well over 1000 birds pass through the island throughout the day. Along with the Blackbirds were pockets of Fieldfare and Redwing with triple figure counts posted for each species. The Woodlark re-emerged in the obs crop after a five day absence, a flock of 42 Twite shows signs of building up in the crop too. Holland was the main focus of our attentions for the afternoon and we managed to get nets open from 14:00-17:00 in this five hour spell we managed to catch 112 birds including 101 Blackbirds, 3 Blackcaps, 2 Goldcrests, 2 Long-eared Owls and a Woodcock, not a bad way to spend an afternoon! The Woodcock count was limited to around the observatory and Holland but saw at least 16 birds counted, meaning there's bound to be more on the island!
With the season at a wind down and with plenty of jobs to get done in preparation for the exodus of staff and for 2021 the blog posts won't be that regular but I'll try and keep them weekly at the very least!
Comments