After last year’s attempt for a big year list I decided that this year I wouldn’t bother too much about chasing rarities and concentrate on ringing and foreign birding, the posts on this blog testify that this was indeed the case.
We had planned some ringing for this morning but for various reasons it was cancelled. So as a number of rarities had been seen in Weymouth and Portland. In total of five goodies were seen today and I managed to miss them all!
Unusually I have chosen to illustrate this post with pictures of birds I didn’t see, but it wasn’t all bad – I saw my first Fieldfare and Redwing of the autumn, saw four species of raptor (including a Merlin), flocks of Linnets, Meadow Pipit, Skylark and Goldfinch and as always, had a nice chat to the regulars at the Bird Observatory.
A Short-toed Lark had been seen on the 10th and early on the 11th at Portland Bill. I would have seen it had I stayed put at its most regular spot instead of going walk about. Photo taken in Israel April 2013.
This week a Red-breasted Flycatcher was seen daily at Camp Road, Weymouth. Daily that is until today. Photo taken in Shetland in September 2012.
A Thrush Nightingale was ringed at Portland Observatory and retrapped today. I was dipping on the RBF at the time. It was not seen again after release. This photo taken in Israel in April 2013.
A Yellow-browed Warbler was seen in a private garden in Southwell in Portland. I had a look in the sycamores along the nearby roads and later searched around Pennsylvania Castle, a favoured locality for this species, but to no avail. This bird was photographed in Shetland in September 2012.
During the earlier part of the week I made three visits to Durlston to continue our ringing program. The first two, on the 7th and 9th were highly successful with about 100 birds ringed at each session but the third visit on the 10th was blighted by a strong breeze ad was abandoned after just 23 birds were ringed. As before, Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs made up almost the entire catch.
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