Tuesday, March 25, 2014

A Lack of Migrants


On Monday I spent nearly all morning searching for a reported Surf Scoter in Brands Bay, Poole Harbour, Dorset but to no avail. Having no specific information as to where exactly this bird was and there being no other birders around during the morning I still don't know if I was searching in the correct location. Still there were plenty of Red-breasted Mergansers, Black-necked Grebes and Great Crested Grebes. There were three or four Dartford Warblers down towards Studland and we had our first summer migrant tern with a non-breeding adult Sandwich Tern. But no Scoter so we headed off to Portland Bill to search for migrants. It was blowing a hooley and it made for really difficult bird-watching. The only migrants we found were three Northern Wheatears and as we were getting blown and buffeted all over the shop I resorted to taking photos of Jackdaws and Pied Wagtails taking shelter near the cars in the car park.



 
Pied Wagtail M alba yarrellii - Holding the line


Pied Wagtail M alba yarrellii - Still holding the line


 
The Jackdaws were hanging about in the car park in hope of bits of food and whenever a car arrived and people got out these birds would strut nearer.



These photos are all in colour!


Strutting!




 
A couple of Sand Martins at Radipole Lake towards the end of the day were the only other summer migrants that we managed to see.

No comments:

Post a Comment