Monday 23 October 2017

'Viz-mig' mid October 2017

At the moment every day, from most bird sightings pages, the term 'vis-mig' has been constantly used.
Unsurprisingly, another group of 3 Hawfinch flew over heading W calling at about 8am on Wednesday morning, on another nearby road.
With the mornings mostly being quite cool and sunny, it's been quite nice to be outdoors with plenty of other birds around; c.100 Chaffinch have flown over, and whilst walking at least 3 separate Long-tailed Tit groups have been noted. A few buzzards were coming through and a steady trickle of Redwings in the early mornings. 
As Ophelia swept through Ireland, there was quite a spectacle on Monday but with most other nature blogs already describing it I'm not going to do exactly the same; what I will say though is that it really did look fascinating if not slightly creepy! 
This afternoon 'vis-mig' has continued, with the usual birds over like Chaffinch, and a single Lesser Redpoll making a garden first - unusually the 45th 'garden' species to make the list. 
Although I live in a part of England (and even the UK) which is definitely not spectacular for birds to say the least it's a decent list. With Ed's Thorncombe street blog often explaining why birds seen on his patch are seen there, it had me thinking on how I've had 9 Raptor species over the garden before - and many of them being in early spring or late summer. It now seems quite obvious, as they are mostly seen in fairly good migration/passage time. For example, an Osprey in September 2014 seemed to be slowly heading SW, towards Hampshire/Dorset en route back to Africa. This year, a Goshawk heading SW at a brisk pace in April. 
I assume that Beddington Farmlands has got me a few birds as well, with 2 harrier species seen and a few waders over the years. Either way, it's not the worst place to 'viz-mig.' It just could be better. 
The last week though has mostly been quiet, considering the Hawfinches have started to stop coming through. The next week and half is going to be much busier; hopefully something unexpected pops up...

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