Sunday 23 August 2015

What Happened To All The Wheatears?

Sat in my brother's conservatory last night celebrating 'little brothers' 48th birthday I listened to the thunder and lightning with heavy down pours thinking "I bet there's a good few Wheatears at the Obs tomorrow morning"! Fast forward to this morning and there were just a few not a 'good few'.

Having consumed a Chinese and a few beers last night I didn't get to the Obs quite as early as I would have liked, but nevertheless it wasn't that long after sunrise. I had virtual clear skies with a strengthening easterly wind.

There were a few grounded migrants around and first up was a calling Goldcrest from the copse, followed by a male Whinchat and four Wheatears.

 Wheatear

The vis was fairly slow with just 26 Swallows and four Alba Wags south. I had two Sparrowhawks go through, a male and a female, but I wasn't sure whether they were migrants or not. On the raptor front I also had two Kestrels followed by a male Peregrine over by the estuary later in the morning. I also had 150 Redshanks on the estuary as well.

I recorded a bit of movement on the sea in the form of 22 Sandwich Terns, four Gannets and 31 Common Scoters. A Small Copper butterfly was my first one at this part of the Obs for a while and on my walk back to my car down the lane I came across the fungi below that I have failed to identify, so if anyone has any ideas please let me know!

 Unidentified fungi

The forecast for tomorrow morning is for light cloud with a light southeasterly wind, so if I don't have too many real ales this evening I might try and get out for a couple of hours before work.

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