25th October


A reminder that there's an In Focus field event at the Obs between 10am and 4pm tomorrow, Saturday 26th October.


A strong, gusting wind that built through the day meant that only the most sheltered of areas were  birdable. Yellow-browed Warblers lingered on at the Eight Kings Quarry, Avalanche Road (2) and Old Hill, a Siberian Chiffchaff was at the Grove Cliffs and single Firecrests were scattered about these and other spots. The stream of Black Redstarts from the past couple of days dried up with only four recorded within the Bill area. The sea added a touch of variety with three Bonxies, two Arctic Skuas and a Pomarine Skua as well as a single Balearic Shearwater. The highlight from an extremely windy Ferrybridge was this autumn's highest count to date of 1400 Brent Geese; 6 Pale-bellied Brents and 2 late Sandwich Terns were also there.

The strength of the wind made for difficult birding today but there were still odd nuggets of interest on offer; this Yellow-browed Warbler was still at the Eight Kings Quarry © Martin Cade:


When they're mingling together at this time of year on the sandflats at Ferrybridge it's easy to forget that only a couple of months ago the Dark-bellied and Pale-bellied Brent Geese were on two different continents as their High Arctic summer drew to a close © Pete Saunders: