Barton's best ever

As Steve P said yesterday my main priority at the moment is getting in heaps of work pre-Kenya, but they do say every man has his price and it seems mine is a cloudy day with a force 3 easterly!

And boy was I glad I dumped the work in favour of what turned out to be probably the best vis mig session Barton has produced for me. I rather think Steve was pleased he went for it again, I may just have sown a vis mig seed.

Top rarity billing went to 2 Tree Sparrows that headed east at 0809: after only having seen two in the county before I've now had six in Hants this autumn. I rather suspect that it may be overlooked at this time of year. Had today's two been 50 yards or more further away they probably would have slipped by unnoticed amongst the hordes of finches. Star finches in terms of rarity were the 17 Crossbills that went east in a single flock, but the undoubted stars of the day were Linnet and Goldfinch with awesome counts of 2383 and 1673 going east (everything was today) respectively. The latter is my second highest count (just 46 short of the record) and I think about the fifth highest in Hants, but the Linnet count was about three times my previous best and, I strongly suspect, by far the highest count ever in the county. The supporting vismig cast were as follows: 1700 House Martins ( a very good October count), 670 Swallows, 198 Meadow Pipits, 121 Siskins, 77 Chaffinches, 74 Greenfinches, 46 Pied Wagtails and 9 Reed Buntings.

Two Wheatears, 5 Stonechats, 7 Mistle Thrushes and 2 Grey Wagtails were on the ground, and a Shag and a Gannet were offshore, but I didn't cover a great deal of ground to look for grounded birds and my attention wasn't really on the sea.

The forecast is for a return to westerlies, so I can thankfully get back to earning some much needed readies, but this morning's session is not one I'll forget in a hurry!

9:35 PM - Friday, October 9, 2009 - post comment