Saturday November 7 - Its a numbers game/ringing update

 This morning I was not entirely surprised to discover my moth trap empty, apart from two wasps. So I switched my attention to birds, and specifically to vizmig.

The thing about vizmig (visible migration) is that you have to get up early. By the time I generally get to Morton Bagot its pretty much over, and all I get is its tail end. But in order to beat the predators to the moths I have to be up early, while Lyn sleeps, to empty the trap. For most of the year I am too busy studying the insects before me to look up, but today was an opportunity.

It was quite impressive. The sky was at times full of Woodpigeons, particularly between 07.00 and 07.30. But I gave it an hour and came up with the following counts:

Woodpigeon - 895

Stock Dove - 2

Fieldfare - 13

Redwing - 74

Starling - 25

Chaffinch - 5

Redpoll sp - 2

Woodpigeons over Redditch

Most parties were between 20 and 30 strong, but the largest contained 180 birds. The thing is, at this time of year in calm conditions this movement happens everywhere. You just have to get up.

Going back to moths, I have finally got around to adding a page showing my garden moth list. After just three years of garden trapping it has reached 319. That's just in my garden.

Compare that to birds. In 16 years since we moved here my garden bird list has struggled up to 81 species. My Morton Bagot list, also recently revamped, stands at 154 after 13 years of watching. My Worcestershire list, thanks to the recent addition of Red-flanked Bluetail is on 256, and my West Midland Bird Club region list is on 299.

So I've seen more species of moth in my garden in three years than I have birds in the West Midlands in my entire life.

Wow!

Mind you, there are about 2500 moths on the British list compared to a little over 600 birds, so I won't be seeing them all.

Stop Press: While I was titting about in the garden Tony and Leigh spent a little time at Morton Bagot trying to catch Meadow Pipits. They caught six in all, and have kindly sent me a photo of one.

Meadow Pipit - per Tony & Leigh Kelly