Dark nights again!

The joys of winter. Dark nights and gulls.

Another weekend at Tophill Low NR, East Yorkshire. No dragonflies on Saturday, few gulls or any avian highlights.

This Stropharia caerulea Blue Roundhead, the fungi highlight

Sunday saw me back spending an afternoon looking over D res rather than twitching Filey, North Yorks for a Swift.

A good number of gulls, maybe 14,000, though with movements in and out all afternoon, its is difficult to work out the maximum number of birds. Highlight of sitting looking... an adult Med Gull which dropped in for about 4 minutes mid-afternoon before flying north and not returning by the time the light went.

Bit of Skylark movement - 21 west noon til dusk. Maybe I should've counted all day.

Riscos Apenas

Just thought I'd plug this blog by Paulo Alves. Some brilliant paintings and well worth a look. Should be more great work to come

Back to reality

So after a nearly 3 weeks in the sun, its back to the cold. And I'm suffering! However, I don't seemed to have missed much other than a Glossy Ibis and Red-throated Pipit.

Friday evening I was back at the Tophill Low NR gull roost in East Yorkshire. Almost feels good to be back, my thoughts of gull roosting retirement soon came back, but after a while I was back in the swing of things. Nothing of interest other than an adult type Little Gull, 3 argentatus Herring Gulls and a few Lesser Black Backs still present.

Tophill Saturday turned up a few birds - 7 Black wits flew south, as did a Little Egret and with 20+ Curlew noted east of the river at the south end, 32 flying south in the last 30 minutes of light could mean over 50 are around. A female Pintail and a Willow Tit made up the best of the rest while the gull roost held 4 argentatus Herring Gulls, a single argenteus Herring Gull and only 1 Lesser Black Back.

Still a few dragonflies on the wing - 9 Migrant Hawkers and 29 Common Darters

They seem in good condition given the date so I expect if the weather stays good we'll get some November records.

Also managed to catch up with one of the new fungi Doug Fairweather found while I was away - Horse Mushroom

Its good to be home... Honest!!!

Sagres raptor migration October 2011

Another autumn trip to the Algarve, Portugal with most time spent on a hill on the outskirts of Sagres, the south west tip of mainland Europe.

What can be said about it… 17 days sat on a seat looking at the sky turned up 24 species of raptor. It should have been 25 – just the Lesser Spotted Eagle just didn’t come close enough to Sagres to be identified, but it was one as one of the other spotters further north nailed it!!! It was 25 for the trip though with a lone Black-winged Kite noted between Lagos and Sagres one morning. However, the number of birds seen was well down on last year, hence a lack of decent photographs, but 4 new species of BoP added to my hill list. It meant some good days, some bad days, a few surprises and bits of luck, and finding a Portuguese mega!

Here are the day totals from my notes (Please note these are my totals, not the ones used by the survey team)

Black Kite

Oct 2nd – 1 Osprey, 10+ Black Kite, 22+ Short-toed Eagle, 2+ Sparrowhawk, 3+ Buzzard, 5 Honey Buzzard, 15+ Booted Eagle, 3 Egyptian Vulture, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Hen Harrier, 1+ Hobby, 2+ Kestrel. Additionally, 1 Black Stork, 2 Ravens, 10+ flava Wagtail south

Hen Harrier

Oct 3rd – 4 Short-toed Eagle, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Buzzard, 6 Booted Eagle, Additionally 2 Black Stork. Also 10+ Pied Flycatchers, 4 Redstarts, 3 Black Redstarts, 6 Whinchat, 50+ Wheatear, Subalpine Warblers, Dartford Warblers, Wryneck in the area.

4th Oct – Dragonfly spotting – I’ll write it up later!

Oct 5th – 1 Red Kite, 4+ Black Kite, 2 Short-toed Eagle, 3 Sparrowhawk, 4 Buzzard, 7 Honey Buzzard, 1 Bonelli’s Eagle, 7 Egyptian Vulture, 4 Griffon Vulture, 1 Hen Harrier, 2 Peregrine, 4 Kestrel. Additionally 10 Black Stork, 2 Raven c20 Chough, 1 Bee-eater.

Honey Buzzard

Oct 6th – 9 Black Kite, 3 Short-toed Eagle, 1 Goshawk, 5 Buzzard, 9 Honey Buzzard, 14 Booted Eagle, 2 Griffon Vulture, 2 Hen Harrier, 6+ Kestrel. Additionally 40+ Chough.

Oct 7th – 1 Black Kite, 2 Short-toed Eagle, 4+ Sparrowhawk, 1 Honey Buzzard, 3 Booted Eagle, 1 Egyptian Vulture, few Kestrel. Additionally 2 Black Stork. (Basically a horrible windy day – I spent most of it hidden behind a bush!)

Oct 8th – 3-4 Short-toed Eagle, 6+ Sparrowhawk, 1 Goshawk, 3+ Buzzard, 6 Honey Buzzard, 5 Booted Eagle, 6 Egyptian Vulture, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Peregrine, 7+ Kestrel.

Oct 9th – 2 Short-toed Eagle, 4+ Sparrowhawk, 1 Buzzard, 3 Honey Buzzard, 1 Bonelli’s Eagle, 6 Booted Eagle, 6 Egyptian Vulture, c320 Griffon Vulture, 1 juvenile/immature Ruppell’s Vulture, 2 Peregrine, 6+ Kestrel. Additionally 13 Black Stork, 2 Raven.

Black Stork

Oct 10th –3 Black Kite, 3-5 Short-toed Eagle, 6+ Sparrowhawk, 2+ Buzzard, 2 Honey Buzzard, 9 Booted Eagle, 1 Golden Eagle, 7 Egyptian Vulture, 2 Marsh Harrier, 1 Hen Harrier, 2 Peregrine, 1 Hobby, 7+ Kestrel. Additionally 16 Black Stork

Oct 11th – 1 Black Kite, 2 Short-toed Eagle, 4+ Sparrowhawk, 1 Goshawk, 2-4 Buzzard, 4 Honey Buzzard, 3 Booted Eagle, 7 Egyptian Vulture, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Hen Harrier, 2 Peregrine, 1 Eleonora’s Falcon, 8+ Kestrel. Additionally 3 Black Stork, 5 Spoonbill

Oct 12th – 2+ Black Kite, 3 Short-toed Eagle, 4+ Sparrowhawk, 1 Goshawk, 4+ Buzzard, 2 Honey Buzzard, 1 Bonelli’s Eagle, 1 Booted Eagle, 11 Egyptian Vulture, 1 Griffon Vulture, 1 Marsh Harrier, 2 Hen Harrier, 1 Montagu’s Harrier, 3 Peregrine, 6+ Kestrel. Additionally 4 Black Stork and 4 Raven

Egyptian Vulture

Oct 13th –2 Short-toed Eagle, 3+ Buzzard, 2 Honey Buzzard, 1 Bonelli’s Eagle, 3-4 Booted Eagle, 1 Spanish Imperial Eagle, 2-3 Egyptian Vulture, c162 Griffon Vulture, 1 Peregrine, 6+ Kestrel. Additionally 5 Black Stork, 3+ Raven

Oct 14th –1 Short-toed Eagle, 2-3 Sparrowhawk, 3 Buzzard, 1 Honey Buzzard, 5 Booted Eagle, 1 Griffon Vulture, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Hen Harrier, 1 Peregrine, 6+ Kestrel. Additionally 5-7 Black Stork

Oct 15th – 1-2 Osprey, 3 Short-toed Eagle, 2-3 Buzzard, 1 Honey Buzzard, 1 Booted Eagle, 1 Egyptian Vulture, 1 Hen Harrier, 1 Montagu’s Harrier, 3 Peregrine, 1 Hobby, 4+ Kestrel. Additionally 3 Black Stork, 1 Raven and c60 Chough

Oct 16th – 1 Red Kite, 1-2 Black Kite, 3 Short-toed Eagle, 1 Sparrowhawk, 2 Buzzard, 1 Honey Buzzard, 2-3 Booted Eagle, 1 Egyptian Vulture, 2 Marsh Harrier, 1 Hen Harrier, 2 Peregrine, 7 Kestrel. Additionally 3 Black Stork, 1 Spoonbill and 3 Raven.

Oct 17th –1+ Black Kite, 7+ Short-toed Eagle, 3+ Sparrowhawk, 4+ Buzzard, 2 Honey Buzzard, 5+ Booted Eagle, 175+ Griffon Vulture, 3 Ruppell’s Vulture, 2 Marsh Harrier, 3-4 Hen Harrier, 1 Montagu’s Harrier, 2+ Peregrine, 1 Hobby, 2 Merlin, 6+ Kestrel. Additionally 7 Black Stork, 1 Raven and 60-70 Chough

Oct 18th –1 Red Kite, 1 Black Kite, 6 Short-toed Eagle, 2+ Sparrowhawk, 1 Goshawk, 3-4 Buzzard, 1 Egyptian Vulture, 2 Griffon Vulture, 1 Marsh Harrier, 1 Hen Harrier, 1 PALLID HARRIER (2nd for Portugal), 2 Peregrine, 1+ Hobby, 1 Merlin, 6+ Kestrel.

Pallid Harrier

Oct 19th –1 Short-toed Eagle, 1+ Sparrowhawk, 3+ Buzzard, 1 Egyptian Vulture, 2 Hen Harrier, 1 Pallid Harrier, 1 Peregrine, 6+ Kestrel.

Great people also help a lot – thanks to Nadine, Marco, Filipe, Nuno V, Alexandre, Nuno, Paulo, Estrela, Ricardo, Carlos, Susannah and the gang for the laughs, sharing some cracking birds and putting up with my incredibly bad table football skills!