Over the last few days the balance seems to have tipped from summer to winter as ducks and geese flood into the country and warblers, yellow wagtails and swallow numbers wain.
Pintail flighting onto Ousefleet flash
Pink-footed geese numbers are certainly rising with plenty of small skeins heading out from their estuarine roosts to feed on the arable, and with the weather certainly crisp and cool (ice on my car window this morning) it was a spectacular sight and sound as they passed one after the other directly overhead.
Its not often that canada geese and pink-feet mix together
Just pink-feet
With high tide just after dawn there was also a strong movement of both pintail and wigeon heading westward up the estuary, there has interestingly been a very strong pintail movement over the last couple of weeks but conversely wigeon (usually the commoner of the two) have been conspicuous by their generally low numbers. However, as you can see by the photo's there was a good mix of both species this morning with several mixed flocks going through. As you can also see from the map it is probable that many of these birds are from the Baltic and Russia which matches their East West Migration up the Humber.
Pintail distribution and movements
Mixed pintail and wigeon
Purely pintail
A good record yesterday was the 3rd or 4th reserve record of raven which flew over the reserve, all the records have been in the last five years reflecting the growth in this species range and numbers. Unfortunately no photo's from those who saw the bird.
The bearded tits are taking advantage of the generally calm cool mornings with several small parties irrupting and high flying over the reserve, I get the feeling that quite a few are leaving site so watch out for them in your local reedbed!
High flyers
And a male from this morning
Visible migration has seen a bit of a shift recently with fewer meadow pipits and hirundines (swallows etc) toward skylarks, chaffinch, linnet the odd greenfinch and a handful of siskin. Oddly no grey wagtails after a glut of records at the beginning of the month but possibly a few blackbirds and songthrush arriving.
Linnets on the grazing marsh
Good to see three corn buntings this morning out on the grazing marsh, it's very rare that we have a little 'flock' of this species feeding near the reserve and by the looks of it roosting on site. Just one yellow wagtail this morning around the livestock, those summer migrants are disappearing!
Yellow wagtail
But interesting to see still up to three whinchat yesterday and a single bird today using the structurally diverse grassland that grazing with both cattle, sheep and ponies is creating, this is the second year this specific habitat and area has been used by this declining species. Co-incidentally yesterday my BTO news landed on my doorstep with an article about migration and habitat use by whinchat, it seems that they love a mixed sward/vegetation length to feed in in both their breeding and African wintering grounds, and by the looks of it at Blacktoft while on migration too! The conclusion of the article suggests quite predictably that the reason for the whinchats decline is the change in habitat in the UK rather than in Africa, no surprise there then. Maybe the rise in stocking densities, use of modern rye-grass lays and the increase in tidy farming (better agricultural mowers/toppers) are just a few of the reasons that are leading to the loss of this species. At Blacktoft we've tried to lower the amount of grass topping we do on the grazing marsh and let the livestock do the job naturally and at a slower pace.
Whinchat
Preferred whinchat habitat
Also nice to see on Friday was a lovely Greenland race wheatear, they breed in Iceland and Greenland and have particularly in Autumn a much stronger orange colour on the body and tend to look bigger and longer winged. This male was a corker.
Still a few warblers around site though with chiffchaff but also the odd tardy reed warbler, cettis warblers off course are now resident with a few birds singing around site.
Wader numbers are low at the moment although there is up to 22 ruff, green sandpiper, curlew, lapwing, redshank, snipe, the odd dunlin, spotted redshank and ringed plover. black-tailed godwit on tide and a few golden plover sometimes in the field next to site. I looked back on last years blog at this time of year and interestingly the wader numbers were exactly the same, but in October their numbers recovered and the reserve was pretty good, lets hope this happens again!
Ruff
This morning there was a couple of little egrets on Marshland, while of course the marsh harrier are ever present with barn owl on an evening. Friday there was a late hobby record.
With a little bit of rain there has been the emergence of a little bit of fungi on site, lets hope it gets better!
Glistening Inkcap
I'll finish with a couple of photo's from the People's walk for Wildlife that I went to with Titch on Saturday. Great to see 10,000 people walking to Downing street to make the point to the Country not just the Government that we want to see a better countryside for our wildlife. Whatever your views, for me that is what we were all walking to make that one overarching point, its time for a positive change.
Some nice owls
Good to see people of all ages and families