With a bit of continental influence and easterly winds & high pressure over Europe over the last few days there has certainly been some interesting movement of birds through the reserve with the most notable sighting being a Siberian chiffchaff which has been present for the last two days (seen between Xerox and Marshland hide this morning). Although still classed as a race of chiffchaff these lovely little warblers still have something special about them and give out quite a distinctive 'peep' call rather than the typical 'huit', they also tend to be a grey and brown tone, unfortunately though I didn't quite get long enough views this morning to be able to get photo's of the bird. If anyone does manage a few shots than please send them to me. Interesting to note too that yesterday there was quite a few Siberian type chiffchaffs reported from along the Yorkshire and North East coast.
A misty mellow morning on the reserve
But certainly with the early morning mist there has been lots of migrants grounded or forced to fly lower than they would in clear weather which has resulted in plenty of greedy fieldfares, redwings, blackbirds and a handful of song thrushes gobbling up the haw berries, while some mornings there are good sized flocks of starlings feeding around the fields, no doubt roosting somewhere along the Humber.
Adult male blackbird berry gobbling this morning
Fieldfare are lining the tree's and bushes
And a good number of finches this year with certainly many more chaffinch than last year, and then a few redpoll, siskin, yellowhammer, reed buntings and most notably for here excellent numbers of brambling with yesterday up to five around the car park giving their distinctive eek-eek calls as they fed in the tops of the ash trees.
Bramblings in the car park yesterday
And a close up despite the poor light it shows its a male
Brambling breed in Scandinavia and across Siberia within the taiga forest which is mixed birch and conifers, this is a huge area and accordingly their population must be massive. This year it seems like there is a food shortage (they often feed on beech nuts) somewhere within their wintering range and this is driving them over to the west and across to the UK. large numbers have been recorded in some places with a massive 116,000 in one day over one European location. On the coast of Eastern England there has also seen some large counts flying over of several thousand birds.
This map shows the origins of the brambling entering the UK suggesting many entering into Yorkshire are of Sweedish, Finish and Baltic States origin.
This was one of the breeding bramblings I encountered in the vast forests of Sakha in Siberia this summer, simply stunning birds.
Here at Blacktoft its not been quite that spectacular but we have been seeing flocks of up to 30 birds going through and eeking blamblings passing south most days over the last month, we usually only get about 6 records but I reckon this year we have have over 200 birds at least! So its certainly a notable year and also suggests that for the UK there may be the possibility of more unusual birds to follow such as waxwing and maybe even nutcracker
The wetland is also producing some notable counts of scarce wintering species alongside the commoner birds despite our water levels yet again shrinking before our eyes due to the continued lack of rain and tides (where will it all end?). But the shallow water conditions and good feeding conditions in some of the local arable fields are certainly to the liking of the ruff with an excellent recent peak count of 89 birds across Townend and Singleton lagoon in the early morning alongside 51 black tailed godwits, snipe, redshank and lapwings. There has also been records of dunlin, curlew and over 1000 golden plover over the estuary.
Ruff - Xerox
89 ruff doesn't sound a lot but I'll try to put it into context with a graph from the BTO below that shows the mean UK WEBS count is only 50 or so birds in November. Population wise there are probably only about 150 - 250 ruff that winter in the country regularly so the reserves count equates to about 50% of the UK ruff population. Not bad for a little wetland on the Humber! Ruff like all waders are declining so really need all the help they can get.
Our white headed ruff - I have the feeling that 'our' wintering ruff move between the Wash, Humber and Lower Derwent depending on feeding opportunities.
No sign of the hen harriers at the moment for some reason but still plenty of marsh harriers and regular peregrine, merlin, buzzard and sparrowhawk and the chance of short-eared owl and barn owl.
Another Humber spectacular at the moment are the pink-footed geese that are feeding in the fields next to the reserve, not just the sight of 1000 birds but also the noise which over the last two days has carried across the reserve to fill the air, amazing! Here's a few snaps from over the last week to show some of the amazing sights of large numbers of geese, both pinkfeet and greylags and also our 'ghost' greylag!
Pinkfeet
Our ghost greylag - a leuicistic bird.
A good selection of wildfowl across the reserve too with the wigeon at times showing lovely as they graze the grass areas we create along the edges of the lagoons, also look out for shoveler, teal, gadwall, mallard, and shelduck that are accompanying the wigo's.
Wigeon on Marshland yesterday
With water levels low its been good for seeing the water pipits as they fly around (quite difficult to see when they land in vegetation!) with at least two birds on site this morning. Also of note has been bullfinch, plenty of stonechats and with the leaves falling you have a better chance of seeing the Cettis warblers.
Stonechat
Its certainly a lovely time to get out into the autumn colours!
I'll just finish on a picture or two from a visit to the coast at the weekend - shorelarks are just superb birds and it seems as per brambling they are arriving in good numbers.