Migrants at last and a bird of prey surfeit

 Numbers of overflying migrants at Wains Hill definitely increased over the past two weeks with a boost in variety and a real highlight in the form of a flock of 10 Crossbills.

You will need headphones or the sound up loud for this. I am still struggling with getting sounds onto here despite following lots of good advice about extra add-ons for audacity etc which just have not worked for me yet. With luck this will though



My efforts at photographing migrants shooting past are equally dire for example these Chaffinches


I wish I could better convey the excitement of feeling that something rare just could appear in the next thirty seconds.


Yellow-browed Warblers are increasingly common but usually elusive and always, to me anyway, exciting. Ever since I found my first at Girdleness, while a student at Aberdeen University in the 1970s,  I have looked for them every autumn with mixed success. 

This year I heard one call by the car, literally as soon as I parked on Saturday (12th Oct). It was somewhere in a big sycamore. An hour later it called again from the same spot, but at no time did it give even the merest glimpse and was gone the next morning.

It was not till the following Friday that I found a second and this was near the boat storage area below Wains Hill. This time I actually saw it after a wait of only 20 mins but within 10 secs it had vanished again. Luckily, the next morning, it reappeared in front of Jim and I and showed well a few times until I took out the camera, and that was that..... Still time for another I guess.


A walk to Blake's pools on Monday, where I happened to coincide with the involuntary warden and 2 of his friends was terrific though

I caught up with them at the gate along the seawall, having just, myself, found a couple of Brent Geese, to add to the one I had seen leave the pill the previous day


It turned out that they had found a Merlin sitting on a post which allowed us to approach close enough for a few distant pictures and then a flight shot as it moved posts



A couple of hundred yards further along the seawall and the autumn's first Short-eared Owl leapt up from its hiding spot and sat on the short grass for a few minutes




To round things off BOP-wise the female Marsh Harrier put in another appearance near the mouth of the Yeo



On the way back we were all startled when a tiny wader took off from the grass and flew once around our heads, giving the distinctive short, straight call of a little stint. It was over in a flash when it landed out amongst the newly exposed saltmarsh vegetation where there was no chance at all of seeing it.

These sorts of days are few and far between and to be savoured . Nothing especially rare but several really good events and a pretty stress-free environment with like-minded people. What's not to like ?

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