At least we didn't finish bottom of the league

A different day again with patchy cloud scudding across the sky, pushed by a brisk NW wind which had moved round to the SW by the end of the day; there were plenty of birds in the garden through the morning with 68 new birds caught.   Most noteworthy in this total were 17 Redstarts along with 31 Willow Warblers, 4 Blackcaps, 5 Chiffchaffs, 2 Lesser Whitethroats and a Black Redstart - the first to be caught for several weeks.

Black Redstart

 

There was a different feel to the birds caught today as there wasn't really a dawn rush that we've been used to of late, it was steady throughout the session and the majority of the birds had much higher fat scores than the last few weeks indicating that perhaps they hadn't travelled as far to get here as previous days; or simply coming with the wind rather than fighting into it when it was in the east over the last weeks.

   Today the majority of Willow Warblers weighed 10.5 - 12.0g and had fat scores of 3 - 6 as opposed to say 27th April when they weighed 8.8 - 10.5g and had fat scores of 1 -3 and the wind was briskly north-easterly.

 

There was a good concentration of migrants around Birkemose just to the north in the afternoon including at least 9 Whinchats, 2 Wheatears, 7 Redstarts, 3 Pied Flycatchers, a few Willow Warblers and a Black Redstart; odd birds were scattered all over the area as well so there was obviously a decent arrival of birds in the greater area.

 

Louis had some good quality out at the tip today as well (not that I saw any of it!) including a Black Stork which seemed to go down somewhere just to the north but was not relocated, a Montagu's Harrier which also rested briefly, a Black Kite, 600 Eiders, 10,500 Barnacle Geese, 2 White-tailed Eagles, the first Common Swift of the spring, 2 Cranes and a sprinkling of Redstarts and Whinchats.