I’m afraid to say it but summer has already started to wane, making way for autumn to creep its way into our lives, well in the bird world it has.

I would like to apologies for the lack of news over the last week, but as ‘autumn’ migration is now starting to get underway then our sightings blog should almost now be daily.

The first birds to have reached us on their journey south are Green Sandpiper, Spotted Redshank and Common Sandpiper. These are all birds that breed much further north (as high as the arctic), but their breeding season is so short that it is quite common for their journey south to begin in mid June. Spotted Redshank have a strange relationship in that when their egg hatches the female leaves to head south leaving the male in charge of raising the chick. Green Sandpiper are another early breeder with peak counts reaching us by late August. Just like the smaller passerines, many waders are heading south down to Africa for the winter but stopping off at any wetland, coastal, reservoir, muddy pool feeding site on the way to refuel.

There are still lots of young birds being reported with Siskin being a strange but regular addition to the list and young birds such as grey Heron, Little Egret and Med Gulls are being seen dotted around the harbour.

The recent winds have kept many bird’s heads low, and our recent Nightjar walk at Arne unfortunately only rewarded us with the sound of 1 male churring very briefly. You can’t have it all!