A squeezing of the isobars along the Channel coast heralded considerably brisker conditions to contend with and much of the day's migration involved fly-bys rattling through into the northeasterly. Hirundines and pipits accounted for the bulk of the numbers, with sample totals of 1500 House Martins, 600 Swallows and 400 Meadow Pipits through at Tout Quarry in 45 minutes, 1000 Swallows and 500 Meadow Pipits through at Ferrybridge and 1400 Meadow Pipits, 1120 House Martins and 750 Swallows through during a longer watch at the Bill; amongst the tag-alongs, a Golden Plover and a departing Sparrowhawk were of note at the Bill. It was far too clear overnight to have expected any sort of arrival on the ground but 3 Whinchats, 3 Spotted Flycatchers, 2 White Wagtails and singles of Common Sandpiper, Short-eared Owl, Redstart and a Pied Flycatcher amongst the thinnish spread at the Bill, 2 Firecrests at Weston and singles of Pied and Spotted Flycatcher at East Weare provided at least some entertainment. The sea came up with plenty of variety that included 380 auks, 225 Mediterranean Gulls, 210 Kittiwakes, 16 Balearic Shearwaters, 16 Wigeon, 15 Knot, 3 Mallards, 2 Dark-bellied Brents and 2 Arctic Skuas through off the Bill.
So far, it's been a conspicuously poor autumn for wagtails and although today's numbers were not really much of an improvement it was good to at least see a few grounded Yellows and Whites © Martin Cade:
We've been fortunate to have had a whole host of ringing recoveries and colour-ring sightings reported this year and have been planning for a while to collate them all together in a blog-post here - if some of the colour-ring projects weren't so glacially slow in getting back to us with the ringing details of their birds that we've seen then this little project would have already seen the light of day. In the meanwhile, here's a taster from Pete and Debby Saunders who're always super-attentive to colour-ringed visitors at Ferrybridge. This Sanderling there on 28th July was ringed on its nest (the eggs later hatched successfully) in the Karupelv Valley, NE Greenland just 26 days before this on 2nd July..
...whilst this Sandwich Tern there on 14th September was ringed as a chick in the colony at the mouth of the Lymington River, Hampshire on 11th June; amazingly, of the 73 chicks ringed at this colony this year there have already been post-breeding dispersal sightings in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Carmarthenshire and Powys - how cool is that? © Pete Saunders:
