Thursday 2 May 2013

Yet another beautiful day saw the continued arrival of a small number of migrants onto the island. The highlights of today's arrivals included the first Lesser Whitethroat, Garden Warbler and three Spotted Flycatchers of the year, a male Yellow Wagtail on The Narrows, a male Common Redstart at Nant, a Black Redstart on the west side and seven Eiders in Solfach.

On the rest of the bird front, a good count of 87 Wheatears was recorded around the coasts, whilst numbers of other passerine-migrants further inland amounted to: a Song Thrush, five Sedge Warblers, six Whitethroats, 18 Blackcaps, 12 Chiffchaffs, 38 Willow Warblers, 81 Goldfinches and 30 Redpolls.
Two of the Redpolls were good candidates for Mealy Redpoll.

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This Lesser Whitethroat was trapped at Cristin mid-morning (c) Steve Stansfield
 Spotted Flycatcher- two were seen around the Plantation during the day
 Northern Wheatear (top) and Greenland-race (lower)
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Chiffchaff (upper bird) with Willow Warbler (lower bird)- note the longer primary projection on the Willow Warbler (c) Steve Stansfield
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Seven Redpolls were trapped at Cristin, including three cracking males (c) Steve Stansfield
 Blackcap

2 comments:

  1. Some interesting birds there Ben, I have a sneaky feeling during the summer I shall be coming back to this post just to have another look at the Willow Warb' and Chiff-Chaff comparison, very helpful.

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  2. Thanks Douglas. It is one of the easiest ways to do them in the field, although plumage differences are quite obvious at this time of year too.

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