Looking Up

When I opened the door to sniff the morning air at 0830 I knew something was afoot. A flock of Redwings were flying fairly low over the house and heading in a north easterly direction. 

In other years the exact same thing has taken place during north-easterly winds after thousands of nocturnally migrating thrushes overshot their intended direction, the birds then spending most of the following morning trying to get back on track. This all appears to be a tremendous waste of their precious energy to head back in the direction from which they came, but it’s almost as if they are pre-programmed to take a particular path even if it means finding the spot where they went wrong and then starting over again. 

I quickly jumped in the car and headed for the Pilling coast, hoping to see even more visible migration taking place. I wasn’t disappointed as during the next three hours many thousands of Redwings and Fieldfares appeared from the west and south west to then head determinedly north east over Fluke Hall before continuing along the sea wall to then eventually disappear out of sight. 

Early on the movement was almost entirely Redwings and then after an hour or more larger number of Fieldfares appeared until most of flocks were of the larger thrush. I didn’t see any of the many thousands of birds stop to feed as they all seemed to be intent on their task, driven by their communal effort. By midday the movement appeared to have stopped with my approximate numbers split at roughly 50/50 of 4000 Fieldfares and 3500 Redwings.

I tried to get some pictures of the droves of birds- not easy with mixed groups, differing flight heights and speed of individuals, but below is the general idea - a fairly inadequate way of documenting such monumental birding experiences. 

Migrating Redwings

 Redwing

 Migrating Fieldfares

Fieldfare

Things were looking up in other ways with the arrival of a good number of Whooper Swans fresh from Iceland and finding their usual spot out on the marsh where there was also a small flock of Canada Geese. I counted 90 swans today, although I may have missed some flying inland or continuing south. 

Whooper Swans

 Whooper Swans and Canada Geese

The Pink-footed Geese easily numbered 8000, joined today by small groups of Barnacle Geese numbering 13 that I could see. The geese are of course their usual wary selves and I could not reach the sea wall for fear of disturbing the geese until the Hi-Fly chaps had completely cleared them by driving across to their shooting pools. 

Pink-footed Geese

In the vicinity of the pools were 35 Black-tailed Godwit, 15 Snipe, 20+ Skylark, 2 Reed Bunting and 180+ Teal. There was some evidence of an influx of other species today with Jackdaws increasing to 90, Woodpigeons to 150, and the appearance of 8 Stock Dove.

More from Another Bird Blog on Saturday. Linking up Camera Critters and I'd-Rather-b-birdin.