The day after the latest period of strong winds blew through I was at Earlswood hoping it might have left something in its wake. Upper Bittell had scored a Grey Phalarope yesterday (I understand its still there), so I was hoping for something similar.
Well, not for the first time I was to be disappointed. The highlight of a couple of hours was a newly arrived juvenile Little Grebe at the south end of Windmill, along with seven Teal (plus one on Engine), a couple of Ring-necked Parakeets, and the usual two drake Wigeon. There are still 30+ hirundines about, of which several were Sand Martins.
It should have been better though. After hanging around for fifteen minutes on the causeway, I decided there was nothing happening and headed off down the side of Engine. Mistake. While I was under the willows John Oates sent a WhatsApp saying that about 30 Barnacle Geese had just flown over from the north. I didn't even hear them. Wrong place, wrong time.
It set me wondering how many of the birds present on a typical visit I actually see. Clearly you can simply be unlucky when something flies high overhead while you're busy scanning in the wrong direction. But consider this: I had an email from Tony regarding the ringing at Morton Bagot on Sunday. His team caught 29 Blackcaps that morning. How many did I log? Three.
So while I covered the whole site, a guy ringing in just one patch of bushes proved there were close to ten times as many Blackcaps as I saw all morning. The issue here of course is cover. Blackcaps are secretive, skulking birds in autumn. Very easy to miss. I don't think I'm completely useless at birding, but it just goes to demonstrate that we must only see a small proportion of the birds actually present.
I'm off to hang up my bins. Cheerio.
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