Migration in full swing

Autumn migration is now in full swing and locally, the past 2-3 weeks has been really great! With my last 3 weekends taken up by a couple of weddings and a weekend away with friends, most of my birding has been fitting patching Grimsbury Reservoir around work.

There's been quite a few highlights, but the best has probably been the sighting of a migrating Osprey cruising south on the sunny morning of 25/08 affording great views.

One of the other main highlights was the discovery initially of 3 adult Black Terns on 14/08, that later became an impressive 5! Having found them on my lunch break in rather gloomy and damp conditions, they stayed for much of the day before departing sometime during the evening. This appeared to be part of a decent passage UK-wide and a great record for Grimsbury! 

Waders notoriously don't tend to stick at Grimsbury and you just have to be lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time! Both Gareth Blockley and I are in fact on a bit of a roll, and paying the site a visit in the evenings has been rather productive. We've been heading down mainly to check the good numbers of gulls for scarcities, however this has led to late evening year ticks of 3 separate sightings of Greenshank, a Green Sandpiper, a Ringed Plover and both yesterday and tonight, a lovely Black Tailed Godwit. Long may this run continue!

Other recent wader sightings for me have been several Common Sandpiper, a juv LRP and a flyover Lapwing.

Migrant passerines have been in good supply too with a couple of Wheatear, quite a few Spotted Flycatcher and good numbers of common Warbler species including good recent numbers of Willow Warbler and several Lesser Whitethroat. Yellow Wagtails too, have been going over fairly regularly in small numbers, but 24/08 was a little more exceptional with flock of 10 and 5 through. Swallows, House & Sand Martins are still trickling through, while Swifts are still about with 8 seen yesterday evening (01/09) over the reservoir.

The nearby Borrow Pit appears to be a bit of a passerine migrant trap with a regular juvenile Wheatear for the last 2 weeks, as well as a long-staying trio of Whinchats (still there this evening). Gareth and I also found a lovely pair of grounded Tree Pipit there on 30/08, a nice record for the area.

Another recent highlight has been really good numbers of gulls gathering in the evenings before going to roost on the nearby warehouse roofs. This has included several adult & Juvenile Yellow-Legged Gull amongst the several hundred Lesser Black Backed, Black-Headed and the odd Herring & Common Gull.

Other notable sightings have included a couple of flyover Siskins, a couple of Peregrine sightings and sporadic appearances of a Ring-Necked Parakeet!

August has kicked off autumn migration in pretty impressive style. But what will September bring??