There's Always Something Of Interest

For the first time in days I had a stagger round the Obs this morning. At first light I had full cloud cover with a 10 - 15 mph southeasterly wind. There was also a few heavy showers that had me retreating to the copse for shelter a couple of times before the showers finally cleared.

I had a few grounded migrants on my walk round and the first of these was a Garden Warbler in the copse. This bird was giving frequent bursts of song and I like to think that I have no problem in separating Garden Warbler from Blackcap, but on the odd occasion I have been surprised when listening to a Blackcap and a Garden Warbler pops up, or vice versa! So it was nice to see this beautiful summer songster later in the morning showing itself to be what I thought it to be!

There were a few other species of warbler singing this morning and based on their positions on my walk they are very likely territory holding birds and I haven't classed them as grounded. These were three Whitethroats, a Chiffchaff and three Sedge Warblers.

Next up on the grounded list were two male and one female Wheatear, followed by a Tree Pipit, two Grasshopper Warblers and a Lesser Whitethroat. I flushed the Tree Pipit from behind the dunes and it flew round calling before heading off south surprisingly, but I guess it was just flying in to wind.

 Wheatear

 Grasshopper Warbler (there's always vegetation in the way spoiling the shot!)

The only vis I had this morning were Swallows and these were all flying south, again heading into the wind, and I had 51 in total.

The sea was quiet with just five Sandwich Terns, six Gannets, two Eiders and seven Common Scoters. Walking back to my car I had two Greylag Geese (domestic) fly over and drop in to the field behind the sea wall and this was the first time I have seen Greylags on the deck in this location.

 Greylag Goose

I then had a look in the Cemetery and the woodland and all I could add was a Sparrowhawk, Swift, two more Chiffchaffs and three Blackcaps.

I'm not sure when I'll be back on the patch as I have quite a bit of survey work in Cumbria to do over the next couple of weeks and I suppose it will all depend on the weather.