What's moving where you are? We've heard some mentions of large jay movements on the east coast and there are a number of yellow-browed warblers turning up here and there. There have also been numbers of North American birds turning up on our shores so it's definitely worth taking a double take with any that don't look entirely familiar!
I've not heard any redwings or fieldfare overhead at night yet. We are still seeing plenty of house martins and swallows moving through, we had over 50 feeding around the reserve yesterday evening and a steady stream over throughout the day. Put your sightings on Birdtrack please!!!
Warden Intern at Otmoor.
approx 30 fieldfare heading south over the north downs near guildford on wednesday; 5 days after seeing the last of the swallows in the same place.
I heard a redwing over at night on Wednesday and we also had a stonechat make a visit to the Lodge during the week, the first for some time. I spotted 6 swallows on Tuesday, the stragglers are still making their way south!
2 swallows heading west across West Sussex on the 13th. West???? That same night we had the first frost of the season. Bet they wished they'd left earlier....
Here in SW France we had the first 'common cranes' returning south. We heard them at midnight and again early this morning. About 10:00 am I saw just three overhead, flying in the wrong direction ! These are probably the vanguard, possibly they spent the night locally, by the river or any of several lakes. They had their undercarriage down which made me think they might be storks, but storks are silent in flight and these were definitely noisy, (storks often overnight in Bergerac near us) I guess they had just taken off and were then flying west to the hills and forest for the thermals where they can gain height. The last few days have been very, very wet after a couple of days of gale force wind; previously we had fine sunny weather with a warm southerly wind. The cranes always pass over this time of year, it seems even if the weather conditions are against them. Hoping to see more, bigger flights in the next few days. Normally we can expect to see flights of hundreds, spread over a week or so. The spring migration north in late Feb is usually in much larger flights of several thousand.
Roy B, Semper Sersum
Migration is definitely in action in the NE, with many Redwings and other migrants coming in. On Saturday I went into dirty twitcher mode and went for the Eastern Olivaceous and Radde's Warblers in fife. Loads of migrants including thrushes, finches, jays and even a great spotted woodpecker added to a great day, which was finally topped off with a red breasted flycatcher as we left.
In our bit of N.Yorks the Thrush movement seems very fragmented.On Saturday a visit to a reserve a couple of miles up the road got 3 small flocks of Redwing dropping in and diving into the berry crop.They may have just arrived as they looked shattered and were more interested in food than us (camera left in car as usual).A visit to similar habitat yesterday resulted in nothing other than the local tit flock yet it was only a couple of miles away and there was a lot of food about.We have seen only very small numbers of Fieldfare in our area maybe they will come later.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
The poor visibility has resulted in many birds congregating along the east coast, our Bempton site is seeing large numbers of migrant thrushes, finches and goldcrests to name just a few. Might be worth a visit if you are in the area...and can find it in the murk!!!
Hope they stay around as we cannot get away until early next week but we will be keeping an eye out locally.
Go now-Seaman....No such thing as MURK in Yorkshire.Its just romantic mist.
edgebander said:Go now-Seaman..
No can do,we are on grandparent duty to a very lively almost 3 yr. old until Sunday.