August arrival

It has been a rewarding couple of days at Long Nab. With moderate SE winds from Sunday it was fairly predictable that there would be an arrival of commoner drift migrants, and of course along with those we are always hopeful of something a little more unusual. 

With reports on Sunday of Pied Flycatchers arriving, and Nick enjoying an Icterine Warbler arrive at the cover crop hedge on Sunday afternoon I was keen to plan a ringing session on Monday morning. With nets in position early it was clear that there was a good number of Pied Flycatchers in the ringing area.

Pied Flycatcher - a 1st winter

Pied Flycatcher - an adult

A nice selection of other commoner warblers were present with Lesser Whitethroat, Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Blackcap and Willow Warbler all present. Most of these avoided the nets, but a Willow Warbler was ringed. Chats included a scattering of Whinchats and the odd Wheatear plus a couple of Redstarts (including a cracking male).

Willow Warbler

More unexpected was a Grasshopper Warbler that was initially found by Micky in one of the pines in the ringing site and it was not too long before it had found its way into on of the nets.

Grasshopper Warbler

Waders were clearly also on the move with regular (mostly heard only) Ringed Plovers heading south, with Turnstone, Golden Plover, Oystercatcher, Wood Sandpiper and Ruff all amongst the movers. A Marsh Harrier headed north, whilst a Kestrel went south at sea. 

All very nice, but perhaps lacking the quality scarce or rare migrant we had hoped for. However, a second, shorter session on Tuesday morning produced the goods with a cracking Barred Warbler turning up in one of the nets soon after sunrise and necessitating an unexpected early morning pre-work twitch for Nick. 

Barred Warbler

Barred Warbler