Thursday 25 October 2012

Visible migration

In a vain attempt to get with it I spent the morning vis migging, if thats the verb. Having failed miserably at finding aquatic species on reservoirs and putting off raking leaves off the back lawn I'd spend the morning seeing if I could see anything flying overhead. The ridge that runs from Nuneaton northwards past Atherstone,Grendon and Dordon offers a number of east facing vantage points. Merevale hill with Legion wood is relatively quiet and easy to access. I arrived at about 9.30am,visability was good despite a low cloud base with a fresh NE wind. Almost immediately a group of Fieldfare, my first of the winter, flew over. A steady flow of migrants mainly thushes continued to move over during the next 2 hours. Most flocks were 8-10 birds, the biggest flock(mainly Fieldfare) was 30. I struggled with the small stuff but there were certainly Chaffinch, Redpoll and Goldfinch passing. All birds seemed to be heading in the same SE direction except a flock of 19 Golden plovers, again my first of the winter, which flew East.The only other bird of note was a local Raven which 'enjoyed' a joust with Crows.
I was joined by SH who could put names to the LBJs passing over, which was nice. In a further attempt to 'get with it' Ive started to Tweet. The Doc says its an age thing so Ive got to learn to live with it. https://twitter.com/BobD85764876

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