The Scilly adventure continues!

Hello

A mixture of weather down here on the Scillies during the last few days but generally pretty dry and still mild and with ridiculous numbers of interesting insects still on the wing. The people monitoring the moths are finding all sorts of rare specimens and there are Hummingbird Hawk-moths everywhere! The last few days have provided more records of Vagrant Hawker dragonflies, lots of butterflies and even a couple of stick insects!

Bird-wise it has been relatively quiet and some of the standard scarce migrants have been difficult with very low numbers of Firecrests and Wrynecks. Even the Yellow-browed Warblers are only here in small numbers and are definitely not showy!

Eleanor took a boat trip around the islands on Sunday and saw large numbers of Grey Seals, a party of four Grey Phalaropes and a variety of inshore sea-birds including auks, Common Scoters etc.

Blackcaps are moving through the islands in high numbers and even the winter thrushes have arrived with small numbers of fresh Redwings, Fieldfares and Ring Ouzels each day (and even a Mistle Thrush today which is scarce here). Scarce migrants seen most days include Lapland Bunting, Richard's Pipit, Red-backed Shrike, flycatchers and Common Redstarts and there has been a big arrival of Black Redstarts and White Wagtails. Several 'Yellow Wagtails' include some perplexing individuals. Merlins, Sparrowhawks, Kestrels and Peregrines whizz around the islands and keep things lively!

Regards

Neil M

Grey Seals
Eleanor McMahon.

Grey Phalarope
Eleanor McMahon.

Scilly fisherman.

Bums on the beach -
Tor and Jaeger enjoying
themselves!

One of those 'Yellow
Wagtails'??

Storm Callum

Hello

Well Storm Callum has certainly made it's presence felt down here in the SW! Driving rain and gale force winds reaching gusts over 70mph have been entertaining here on the Scillies! Sea-watching has produced plenty of sea-birds which have included several shearwater species, Leach's Petrel, skuas etc.

Locating passerines and familiar land-birds has been more of a task but we have enjoyed the fall of Black Redstarts, some showy Common Redstarts and late pulses of warblers and chats which is so typical of the Scillies. The conditions remain mild and insects are still blooming with rare moths being found, a Locust can you believe, a Vagrant Emperor dragonfly and butterflies including Long-tailed Blue and Clouded Yellow,

The storm should fizzle out overnight and there are high expectations of some good finds during the next couple of days!

The Ringing Tab on this blog has been updated with images from the Portugal expedition last month which includes birds in the hand and in the field.

Regards

Neil M

Cattle Egret at
Earls Barton GP
courtesy of Dave Jackson.

The gorgeous Tree Sparrow.
A surprise ringing addition to
Chris Payne whilst ringing in
his garden at Greens Norton!

Small Copper butterfly.

Harbour Porpoises feeding
with Gannets diving around...

Male Common Redstart.

Song Thrush.
Sorry, can't resist them!

Robin.
Nor these!

Greenland Wheatear.

Black Redstart.

Birds and birders on the move!

Hello

A period of changeable weather down here on the Scillies has produced a mixture of new birds and lots of visiting midlands birders with a fair sprinkling from Northants!

The Yellow-browed Warblers are gathering in numbers now and other interesting migrants that we have caught up with include Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Barred Warbler, Tawny Pipit, a putative Wilson's Snipe, Cattle Egret and plenty of others.

Some ringing on St Mary's yesterday produced a reasonable catch finishing with a Merlin in the net!

A pelagic trip today was quieter than last week but there were a fair number of Storm Petrels, Puffins, a Purple Sandpiper and a few each of Sooty and Manx Shearwater. The highlight though was an adult Pomarine Skua right over our boat!

Back in the county today and Eric was again at Thrapston Pits and saw his first Redwing of the autumn, a Blackcap, twelve Siskins, a few Chiffchaffs and Cetti's Warblers and an adult Yellow-legged Gull.

A very busy ringing session at Linford Lakes, Milton Keynes on Sunday saw a small team process 150 birds made up of 67 Blue Tits, 41 Great Tits, 6 Robins, 5 Dunnocks, 9 Wrens, a Blackbird, 3 Redwings, 4 Blackcaps, a Song Thrush, 4 Greenfinches, a Cetti's Warbler, 2 Meadow Pipits, 2 Goldcrests, a Chiffchaff and 3 Goldfinches.

Regards

Neil M

Merlin in the hand!

Pomarine Skua, an adult
with 'spoons'!

Scillies land-birding

Hello

Most of our effort this past week has been spent on St Mary's and with an excursion on to the lovely island of Bryher yesterday. Passerine 'summer' migrants are still in reasonable numbers with plenty of Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Swallows around with 'winter' migrants slowly gathering pace as flocks of Meadow Pipits swirl around the fields and there are waders on most of the beaches. Most days we have found small numbers of Spotted Flycatchers, Grey Wagtails, Whinchats, Stonechats, Wheatears and with an occasional Pied Flycatcher, Tree Pipit, a single Lapland Bunting and so far just one Yellow-browed Warbler.

Raptors on the island include a female Merlin that has urbanised itself and sits on chimney pots in Hugh Town picking off House Sparrows; also there are several Kestrels on the islands and a couple of Sparrowhawks and any number of Peregrines.

The bays and buoys are home to Sandwich Terns and Mediterranean Gulls and of course birds such as Wren, Dunnock, Robin, Song Thrush, Blackbird and Starling are common and often seemingly everywhere!

Back in the county and Eric enjoyed his birding at Thrapston Pits on Wednesday where he estimated two hundred Cormorants were looking for fish and logged four Little Egrets, a pair of Egyptian Geese, up to twenty Chiffchaffs, four Cetti's Warblers and plenty of insects in the warm conditions which included Small Copper butterflies. Jacob was at Pitsford Reservoir also on Wednesday and saw a Rock Pipit, and a Mandarin Duck.

Finally congratulations to Dave Jackson who won Birdguides photo of the week with a cracking photo of a fishing Black Tern at Pitsford Reservoir. Well done Dave!

Regards

Neil M

Clodhopper Water Rail !

Kestrel.

Bar-tailed Godwit.

Lapland Bunting.

Song Thrush.

Tawny Pipit.

Stonechat.

Collared Dove.

Merlin.

Scillies Pelagic

Hello

On Monday I was fortunate to join a pelagic boat trip off the Isles of Scilly. The Scilly pelagic trips during the late summer and early autumn were particularly good this year and I was hopeful that maybe some of Great Shearwaters might be lingering in the deep water off the Scillies.

For the first ninety minutes or so we didn't see very much at all but we didn't need to worry as the skipper Joe Pender expertly guided us towards a feeding frenzy of sea-birds and Common Dolphins.
We stayed with them for a couple of hours, rafts of shearwaters including maybe a hundred Greats and smaller numbers of Sooty, Balearic and Manx being the main centre of attention.

Gannets were diving all around us, the water burst and spluttered as pods of dolphins fed frantically around us and a few each of Great Skua and Kittiwake joined the throng. A Minke Whale surfaced twice near to the boat, confirming that most of the activity was going on unseen below the waves. The supporting cast included a few each of Guillemot, Razorbill, Puffin and Grey Phalarope...

Regards

Neil M

Great Shearwaters.

Balearic Shearwater.

Sooty Shearwater.

Great Shearwaters.

Common Dolphins.