After a day off doing essential things such as work and family on Monday, Will and I made yet another trip to Out Rawcliffe this morning hoping to top up the ringing figures again. Although the weather was fairly bright there was a fair amount of cloud with an easterly breeze. Perhaps crucially there looked to be low cloud, drizzle and poor visibility on the lower Pennines not far away from us just beyond Garstang, as confirmed when I checked the “vis mig” Yahoo forum later.
We altered our net rides somewhat for the easterly breeze and caught birds in less numbers than we have grown accustomed to in recent days and weeks, but nevertheless we had an interesting morning. We packed up earlier than normal about 10am due to the number of birds drying up when the wind started to bluster.
We caught 28 birds, comprised of 26 new and 2 Long-tailed Tit recaptures. The new birds were 4 Meadow Pipit, 1 Blue Tit, 2 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Goldfinch and 17 Chaffinch. That takes our total of Chaffinch caught at this site in September to 237 birds, 146 females and 80 males, or expressed as a percentage, 66.2% females and 33.8% males.
The movement of Meadow Pipits was very thin this morning, reflected in our meagre catch of 4 birds and a count of less than 50 birds on the move, mainly going south east. However the four caught today put the September catch here to 72 individuals.
Today’s Chiffchaff was also number 10 for the month, not on a par with recent counts for Spurn but a figure that pleases us because we don’t catch too many. In the last few weeks we have grown accustomed to hearing an unfamiliar call from Chiffchaffs, a richer, fruitier, almost finch like alarm call. They sound similar to this one recorded in Eastern Sweden.
A notable species on the move this morning was Pied/White Wagtail with at least 20 fly overs this morning, all from north to south, but only a couple of the related Grey Wagtail.
Other birds “over” during our 3 hour stint included 1 Song Thrush, 4 Snipe, 2 Siskin, 120 Chaffinch, 40 Swallow, 1 Corn Bunting, 15 Linnet and 25 Goldfinch. More local birds consisted of 2 Tawny Owl, 2 Jay, 1 Kestrel, 2 Buzzard and a single Corn Bunting.
It looks like definite rain tomorrow, time to put the pliers away for a day or two and maybe get in a spot of single minded birding when the deluge stops.
2 comments:
Adore how the Long-tailed Tit is looking at you and the Chaffinch so handsome, certainly looks ready for a stay over~ Mary
The Long-tailed Tit is surely one of the cutest birds in the world!
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