Saturday 23rd September 2017

Two Purple Sandpiper were at the point on Landguard this morning.

A clear and warm start to the day with showers late morning. Noted on the reserve 25 Goldfinch, 19 Pied Wagtail, 6 Wheatear, 5 Goldcrest, 2 Purple Sandpiper, 1 Blackcap & 1 Sparrowhawk.

Vismig going South over the reserve, 72 Swallow, 18 House Martin, 7 Meadow Pipit, 5 Chaffinch, 4 Grey Wagtail, 3 Sand Martin, 1 Tree Pipit & 1 Yellow Wagtail. Some migration is not always quite as obvious, Blue Tit are also currently moving through with 7 new birds here today.

Offshore 7 Common Tern & 6 Med Gull. Offshore passage going South 76 Teal, 75 Brent Goose plus 4 on the Sea, 25 Wigeon, 3 Pintail, 2 Dunlin & 1 Bar-tailed Godwit. Going North, 2 Common Scoter.

21 birds ringed: Blue Tit 5, Chiffchaff 5, Goldcrest 4, Meadow Pipit 3, Blackcap 1, Grey Wagtail 1, Sparrowhawk 1, Wren 1.

Friday 22nd September 2017

A second winter Caspian Gull was on the Dock yard late morning.

Clear blue skies and a warm breeze, a beautiful day at Landguard but not a busy day for migration. Noted on the reserve, 35 Meadow Pipit, 18 Pied Wagtail, 6 Blackcap, 5 Chiffchaff, 4 Common Tern, 4 Med Gull, 4 Wheatear, 2 Common Gull, 1 Caspian Gull, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 1 Reed Bunting, 1 Sparrowhawk & 1 Yellow Wagtail.

Passage going South, 20 Goldfinch, 20 Swallow, 15 Greenfinch, 14 Meadow Pipit, 4 House Martin & 2 Sand Martin.

21 birds ringed: Blue Tit 7, Blackcap 3, Chiffchaff 3, Dunnock 3, Goldcrest 1, Great Tit 1, Lesser Whitethroat 1, Meadow Pipit 1, Wren 1.

Thursday 21st September 2017

A change in the wind today as it swings round to a South Southwest. House Martin and Swallow are moving through again today, otherwise passage was quiet. Barnacle goose (pictured) do tend to pass rather than land at Landguard so it was uncharacteristic for the 3 that stopped off here today to do so.
Noted on the reserve, 30 Meadow Pipit, 18 Goldfinch, 18 Pied Wagtail, 4 Blackcap, 4 Sandwich Tern, 4 Wheatear, 3 Barnacle Geese, 3 Chiffchaff, 2 Goldcrest, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1 Grey Wagtail, 1 Reed Bunting & 1 Sparrowhawk.
Passage going South, 480 House Martin, 310 Swallow, 5 Goldfinch, 4 Teal & 2 Meadow Pipit.
Late news of a Yellow browed Warbler in the poplars just before 2pm.

Black Rustic is another autumnal moth that occurs here in small numbers.

6 birds ringed: Blackcap 2, Blue Tit 2, Goldcrest 1, Robin 1.

Wednesday 20th September 2017

The clear skies overnight saw an upturn in migrants on the move south, with especially large numbers of Hirundines as 1170 Swallows, 350 House Martin and 15 Sand Martin passed through this morning. Also 74 Meadow Pipit went south, with a further 30 on site feeding with the 26 Pied Wagtails and 2 Wheatear(above). 3 Grey Wagtail also passed through along with 35 Goldfinch, 10 Chaffinch and larger than average numbers of Blue Tits arriving on site with 18 seen along with the same number of Chiffchaffs.

The moth traps had more of interest than of late, including this Deep-brown Dart, a species that seems to be erratic in its appearance here, as we do not get it regularly despite its common and widespread  distribution in southern Britain.

Ringed 30 birds: 10 Chiffchaff, 7 Meadow Pipit, 5 Blackcap, 3 Goldcrest and 1 each of Grey Wagtail, Wheatear, Blue Tit, Sparrowhawk and Wood Pigeon.

Tuesday 19th September 2017

A single Rock Pipit (pictured) was present on the beach, also on the beach, but only briefly, 3 Lapwing which then went West, inland. Although low in number Wheatear are moving through with 4 on the reserve this morning, also noted on the reserve 40 Meadow Pipit plus 22 going South, 20 Chiffchaff, 20 Pied Wagtail, 2 Blackcap, 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Med Gull, 1 Goldcrest, 1 Knot, 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Whitethroat, 1 Willow Warbler,
Passage recorded going South 28 House Martin, 19 Swallow plus 2 on the reserve, 10 Teal, 4 Brent Geese & 3 Sandwich Tern. Going West (inland), 29 Black-headed Gull & 2 Common Gull plus 1 going South. Going North 5 Jackdaw.

Lunar Underwing is another autumnal species out and about at present.

14 birds ringed: Chiffchaff 5, Blue Tit 3, Blackcap 2, Meadow Pipit 2, Goldcrest 1, Willow Warbler 1

Monday 18th September 2017

The finch flock gathered outside the Observatory this morning, 140 Linnets are the majority but 8 Goldfinch were amongst them.

Quite a breezy morning with cloud cover becoming heavier as the morning progressed. The first Reed Bunting of the autumn at Landguard was at the Mine Station and numbers of Chiffchaff onsite have increased since yesterday. Noted on the reserve 40 Meadow Pipit plus 6 going South, 30 Chiffchaff, 27 Pied Wagtail, 6 Blackcap, 2 Goldcrest, 2 Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Reed Warbler, 2 Wheatear, 1 Reed Bunting, 1 Rock Pipit, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Turnstone, 1 Whitethroat & 1 Yellow Wagtail plus 1 going North. Offshore at the point 15 Sandwich Tern plus 1 North, 2 South and 2 Going out West. Also at the point 4 Med Gull & 3 Common Tern.
Going South 92 Swallow, 43 Teal, 15 House Martin, 11 Pintail, 8 Rook, 7 Black-headed Gull & 6 Shelduck. Coming in West off the sea 5 Heron.

Feathered Ranunculus is a classic autumnal moth but one which we are getting less of each passing year.

20 birds ringed: Chiffchaff 15, Blackcap 2, Blue Tit 1, Great Tit 1, Reed Warbler 1.

Just to reiterate -

Unbeknown to us the Twitter feed that notifies those of you out there in Twitter land that this blog has been updated stopped working on 19th August but we were unaware of this. The company providing this free service stopped providing it but did not notify us of this fact. If anyone has any issues with getting the website, blog or Twitter feed then please notify us at landguardbo@yahoo.co.uk as unless someone lets us know we are often ignorant that the service we provide has stopped working. Please do not try and contact us via Twitter as the Twitter feed is just a means of letting blog readers know that the blog has been published and we do not use it as a means of receiving incoming correspondence. Please also note that on occasions the blog is updated later in the day if something significant has turned up after the daily blog has been published - as this is an edited version of the blog for the day and not a new blog then the Twitter feed will not send out a Tweet that the blog has been edited. Hope all this makes sense !

Apologies if you receive this twice. Hopefully normal service has been resumed.

Landguard obs Twitter feed

Unbeknown to us the Twitter feed that notifies those of you out there in Twitter land that this blog has been updated stopped working on 19th August but we were unaware of this. The company providing this free service stopped providing it but did not notify us of this fact. If anyone has any issues with getting the website, blog or Twitter feed then please notify us at landguardbo@yahoo.co.uk as unless someone lets us know we are often ignorant that the service we provide has stopped working. Please do not try and contact us via Twitter as the Twitter feed is just a means of letting blog readers know that the blog has been published and we do not use it as a means of receiving incoming correspondence. Please also note that on occasions the blog is updated later in the day if something significant has turned up after the daily blog has been published - as this is an edited version of the blog for the day and not a new blog then the Twitter feed will not send out a Tweet that the blog has been edited. Hope all this makes sense !

Sunday 17th September 2017

The cooler conditions with overnight fog shows that autumn is well on its way, and with it migrants heading south to warmer climes, most notably hirundines, as 60 House Martins lingered for a time before heading south along with lesser numbers of Swallows and 1 Swift. On site 3 Tree Sparrow, 30 Meadow Pipit, 12 Chiffchaff, 8 Blackcap, 4 Lesser Whitethroat and 4 Goldcrest(definitely autumn then), also 1 Yellow Wagtail south and 1 Hobby north.

17 birds ringed: 8 Chiffchaff, 4 Blackcap, 2 Goldcrest, 2 Meadow Pipit and 1 Great Tit.