Friday November 5 - better late than never

Lyn has tweaked a muscle, so my birding has been limited to a few strolls around our housing estate. A few days ago I thought that 17 Collared Doves might be the only noteworthy record to blog about.

Fortunately, this morning I got a text from Tony K which said he was ringing at Morton Bagot and there were a lot of Redwings about. I had a window of a couple of hours, so headed off. En-route I got another text from Tony this time saying that a flock of 500 Fieldfares had flown over. On my arrival, a party of 80 Fieldfares flew south, and eventually Tony and I ended up with a combined total of 808 going south. 

Redwings were just as numerous, and I logged 220, many of which had landed in the hedgerows. We also recorded a few Redpolls, two Siskins, several Song Thrushes, and a few Skylarks going over.

Redwing - per Tony Kelly

Lesser Redpoll - per Tony Kelly

Tony caught five Redwings, three Lesser Redpolls, six Blue Tits, and a Great Tit.

I soon had to leave, and didn't even have time to visit the flash field. I'm hoping I'll get time for a proper visit on Sunday now that the dam has burst and the winter visitors have arrived.

PS: After posting the above I recorded a Common Gull flying past our garden before putting the moth trap out, and the following morning (Saturday) added Grey Wagtail, and about 10 fly over Redwings whilst checking the trap.

The trap and its surrounds contained nine moths including two new for the year, and one trap for the unwary (me).

Oak Nycteoline in one of its many guises

The rather stunning moth shown above fooled me completely. I had it down as a micro before @UkMothID put me right.

The full list was:

Acleris sparsana 1 (nfy),    Light Brown Apple Moth 2,    Red-green Carpet 3,    Feathered Thorn 1 (nfy),    Yellow-line Quaker 1,    Oak Nycteoline 1.