Wednesday, 2 October 2019

Today was surprisingly calm, the calm before the storm perhaps as 'Lorenzo' moves in across the Atlantic in our direction.

There were a real mix of birds around today, good records came with a Black Guillemot in the early morning past the west coast and a reasonable amount of bird caught at the observatory as the nets were opened. The best counts after this came from the south end where a feeding flock of gulls had formed. Counts from the south end included 694 Kittiwakes making up the bulk of it, eight Common Gulls, 442 Black-headed Gulls (the highest count of the year by far), 33 Mediterranean Gulls including lots of adults, a single adult Sabines Gull was a nice find in amongst them and this many gulls attracted a few skuas with two Great Skuas and a single Arctic Skua around too. 

Walks around the island also produced some good counts, most birds flying over with four Lapland Buntings (a good year for them), two Reed Buntings, eight Goldfinches, 21 Chaffinches, nine Rook and three Jackdaws (birds we haven't had since spring),  35 Goldcrests, ten Chiffchaffs, an impressive 17 Wheatears, 27 Robins, two Grey Wagtails, 22 Skylarks, two each of Merlins and Sparrowhawk, a single female Wigeon and now up to three Grey Herons.

Large female Sparrowhawk caught at the observatory

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