A vis-mig session was held up on Ballard at first light, and although the conditions looked good for birds to move, it never really got going beyond a slow trickle. However, whilst listening to passing migrants the song of a Woodlark was picked up distantly from one of the farm fields, a really odd record for Ballard and after a bit of tracking down 2 were actually discovered. These were only the second and third record for the Studland peninsular all year. Also noted during the session were 4 Yellow Wagtail, 1 Tree Pipit, 1 Crossbill, 11 Lesser Redpoll, 9 Skylark, 50+ each of Linnet and Goldfinch and 70+ Meadow Pipit. Also seen on Ballard were good numbers of Chiffchaff and Stonechat along 1 Peregrine, 1 Sparrowhawk and 1 Buzzard. The 2 Firecrest were at Middlebere again near the cottages, also 5 Goldcrest, 2 Blackcap, 20 Chiffchaff, 1 Whinchat, 1 Whitethroat, 16 Stonechat, 1 Marsh Harrier and 1 Sparrowhawk. In the channel were 6 Spoonbill, 1600 Black-tailed Godwit and a few Wigeon. From Slepe Heath a Hobby was seen chasing some of the many, many Swallow that were passing through all day and 1 Woodlark on the heath. 

The Great White Egret was sat on the sea wall of the Brownsea Lagoon first thing, and there were 31 Spoonbill on the lagoon along with a minimum of 14 Spotted Redshank and 100 Avocet. On RSPB Lytchett Fields the Little Stint was still present, also 60 Dunlin, 6 Greenshank, 7 Green Sandpiper and 2 Little Grebe in the bay. Migrant wise, things are quieting down a bit now but there were still 6 Wheatear, 30 Chiffchaff, 1 Willow Warbler, 20 Blackcap and 1 Grey Wagtail were at Greenland’s Farm, double figures of Wigeon and Pintail in Brands Bay and at Middlebere 9 Pintail, 1165 Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Greenshank, 49 Dunlin, 3 Chiffchaff and 2 Firecrest.

Firecrests – Middlebere – Peter Moore

Another day, another Great White Egret sighting this time from Shipstal hide, Arne. On the rough ground next to the Twin Sails bridge there were 5 Wheatear, 11 Meadow Pipit, 1 Chiffchaff and Grey Wagtail. A new arrival at Lytchett Fields came in the shape of a Little Stint that was hanging out with several Dunlin, also 4 Greenshank and 4 Green Sandpiper there. Brownsea saw 31 Spoonbill and a great count of 17 Spotted Redshank, also 72 Common Redshank present and a Peregrine sat at the back of the lagoon.

Its been hard to pin down exactly how many Spoonbill there are in the harbour this week, but we were sent a message yesterday afternoon stating there were 7 at Middlebere and knowing there were some on the Brownsea webcam we did a count (several times to be sure) and arrived at 23, so it seems there are currently a minimum of 30, with still the rest of September and the whole of October for the flock size to grow. Also at Middlebere were 122 Avocet, 1100+ Black-tailed Godwit, 1 Pintail and 1 Peregrine Falcon.  On Brownsea there were 14 Spotted Redshank, still a few Common Tern and Sandwich Tern using the lagoon as a resting spot, 2 Turnstone, 5 Ringed Plover and the usual Black-tailed Godwit, Avocet, Redshank, Dunlin and Oystercatchers. At Baiter 1 Wheatear was on the beach, also 30 Ringed Plover and 1 Dunlin. AtRSPB Lytchett Fields it seems both the Curlew and Wood Sandpiper have moved on as the fields only held a few Redshank, Snipe and Lapwing. There was plenty of Chiffchaff around the site too.

Two species that are commonplace migrating over our coastal areas of Poole Harbour in the autumn are Greenfinch and Bullfinch. Both can form large flocks as they pass overhead with peak numbers passing by from mid October to early November. Greenfinches have a fast repetitive call that rarely changes in pitch.

Greenfinch – Calls of an autumn migrant over Ballard Down 19/09/15

Whereas Bullfinch do their lovely soft piping ‘piu’ call as they pass overhead, so when a flock of 20+ all pass over calling it’s quite a sound. In this recording it’s only a couple of individuals, we’ll hopefully get some examples of these bigger movements.

Bullfinch – Calls of a couple of autumn migrants passing over Ballard Down 19/09/15

Winter continues to press on with the first Merlin seen dashing across Hartland Moor whilst at roughly the same time 5 Marsh Harrier left the west harbour roost. On Brownsea the (one of the) Great White Egrets was on the Lagoon at dawn along with 16 Spoonbill and a good number of Little Egret. There was also a Great White Egret sighting in Middlebere around mid-morning too. We’re still trying to determine how many Great White Egret there are in the harbour at present. It could just be the same bird flying around from location to location, although there seems to be a list of sightings which show a site faithfulness to the Arne Peninsular (both western and eastern shoreline), then another list of sightings which show allegiance to Brands Bay, Brownsea, Goathorn etc. However, I guess we won’t really know until either two are seen together, or simultaneously seen at two different locations at the same time. Also on the Brownsea Lagoon today 15 Spotted Redshank, 1 Hobby, 1 Peregrine, 2 Kingfisher, 1 Turnstone, building numbers of Avocet, Black-tailed Godwit and Redshank and decent numbers Teal, Gadwall and Shoveler. There were also 3 Wheatear around the sea wall. At RSPB Lytchett Fields the Wood Sandpiper and Curlew Sandpiper are still there, and incredibly a Little Tern arrived to fish in the bay with both Sandwich and Common Terns.

Another commonly heard sound this time of year is the sound of Chiffchaff as they move through the bushes feeding, quite often in groups. Up on Ballard on Saturday morning there had been an obvious fall of Chiffchaff with birds continuously calling from every hawthorn and gorse bush on the headland. Their autumn call isn’t the same as the well-know chiff chaff chiff chaff, but instead a far carrying whoweet call.

Common Chiffchaff – Calls of several autumn migrants on Ballard Down 19/09/15

Probably the most numerous migrant moving at the moment is the Swallow. There are currently thousands moving each day, some heading south and some staying put and feeding in big groups. The Swallows in this recording were passing over my head and heading out to sea, saying goodbye to another British summer. A rude Goldfinch tries to steal the show at the beginning of the recording though.

Swallows heading out to sea as they migrate south – Ballard Down 19/09/15

Today sightings were few and far between with a single Little Tern in Brands Bay briefly and the Curlew Sandpiper and Wood Sandpiper still present at RSPB Lytchett Fields along with good numbers of Dunlin, Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit and Lapwing. Spoonbills continue to commute between Brownsea and Arne with a steady group of 28 so far. Last year numbers really built up in October, so with 28 already present are we going to see the British record of 49 (held by Brownsea last year) get smashed? It was also observed that the first Redwings of the autumn arrived on the east coast this week. We don’t normally see ours until early October but do occasionally get some earlier during late September vis-mig watches.

Talking of vis-mig, below are a couple more sound recordings from the session up on Ballard last Saturday. The first is quite special. It was thought at the time that we had recorded an Ortolan Bunting but we wanted to double check with the guys at the Sound Approach who kindly confirmed it’s definitely an Ortolan. Its quite tricky to hear but the three diagnostic calls can be heard at 4.5, 10 and 20 seconds. To illustrate why they’re Ortolan Bunting calls I’ve included cut outs from the recordings sonagram showing the peaked ‘n’ shape type call they do, which the Sound Approach describe in Catching the Bug, referring to migrating Ortolan Buntings as “showing much variation in pitch, calls are typically single notes spaced well apart, plucked from different strings of the same instrument”

Ortolan Bunting migrating over Ballard Down on 19/09/15 – 6:09am

Secondly, here are a flock of Linnet passing close by over the cliff top. Linnets will be one of the numerous species encountered during autumn vis-mig watches, but its worth familiarising your self with these calls as they can sound similar to other species such as Goldfinch, but as the Sound Approach state, “their twittering averages lower-pitched (than Goldfinch) and has far less range between the higher and lower notes.

Linnet flock migrating over Ballard Down – 19/09/15 

What started off as a blanket of thick fog covering the harbour, eventually gave way to a stunning late summers day. The only draw back was that the first Poole Harbour WeBS (Wetland birds Survey) count of the winter was due to start at 9am, which the think fog hampered for about 45 minutes but eventually cleared. Highlights included a Great White Egret in Brands Bay and then another (or the same) viewed from the Wytch Causeway. At Lytchett Fields the Wood and Curlew Sandpiper remained also there 635 Teal, 313 Redshank, 4 Knot, 5 Green Sandpiper, 1 Ringed Plover, 1 Kingfisher and 22 Little Egret. There’s certainly no shortage of Little Egret at the moment with 36 counted from the Shipstal Hide at Arne and many others around the harbour too. 23 Spoonbill were seen near Wytch and then flew towards Arne. 3 Lesser Redpoll passed over Shipstal Point. There were masses of Hirundines, mainly Swallow taking advantage of the warm weather and presumed abundance of flying insects. A scan across any skyline would result on hundreds (likely) thousands of birds all busily feeding. Other than that wildfowl numbers are slowly increasing as Teal and Wigeon can now be seen at most of the usual haunts and the lone Brent Goose was again at Shore Road. A Whinchat was on Hartland Moor

Between now November, vis-mig (visible migration) can be encountered at several coastal spots along the harbour such as Ballard Down and South Haven. This movement occurs every year and involves species such as wagtails, finches, pipits, larks and hirundines. Durlston CP is one of the best places in the country to experience this, but many of the birds that pass over Durlston then come and pass over the harbour (especially in a NE wind). Identifying these birds by sight is almost impossible as they pass over-head, often in large flocks so the only other way to identify them is by sound. Over the next few weeks we’ll be posting sound recordings on this blog of some of the species you can see and hear pass over-head during the vis-mig season, which will hopefully help you be able to identify them on your own out in the field.

We’ll start with some easy ones. Meadow Pipits pass in big numbers every autumn and have a distinctive high-pitched call which they make continously as they fly over.

Meadow Pipit – Flight calls of a flock of 20+ passing over Ballard Down on 19/09/15

Another good one to try and pick out is Grey Wagtail. These also move in reasonable numbers through out the autumn and have a distinctive double note call as they pass over-head. Grey Wagtail will migrate either individually, in two’s, threes or sometime’s in larger groups.

Grey Wagtail – Flight calls of a migrant passing over Ballard Down on 19/09/15 

A moderate NE breeze blew across the harbour in the very early hours, prompting a sound recording session up on Ballard Down and the chance of some decent vis-mig (visible migration) totals. Although the breeze eased off pretty quickly (by 8:30am), the time in between (5:30am – 8:30) proved very productive. With a big push of 100+ Meadow Pipit and roughly double of numbers Swallow too. Other birds on the move early included 76 Linnet, 15 Goldfinch, 11 Siskin, 8 Greenfinch, 2 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Tree Pipit and 6 Grey Wagtail. I’ll be uploading a few recordings over the coming days of migrants on the move. Grounded migrants up on Ballard included 30+ each of both Chiffchaff and Blackcap, 10+ Whitethroat, 2 Wheatear, 1 Redstart, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 2 Dartford Warbler, 10+ Goldcrest also 2 Peregrine, 1 Sparrowhawk and 1 Buzzard all present. At Greenland’s Farm 2 Tree Pipit passed overhead and present in the bushes were 8 Chiffchaff, 5 Blackcap, 1 Whinchat and a Spotted Flycatcher.  At Holes Bay there were large numbers of hirundines feeding above Upton CP, also a Dartford Warbler near the railway line (very rare here), 4 adult Yellow-legged Gulls in the bay, also c280 Black-tailed Godwit and c200 Wigeon.  At Lytchett Fields the Wood Sandpiper and Curlew Sandpiper remained. 

First up, a Wryneck was discovered along the Middlebere track during the morning, which showed well for a couple of viewers but then disappeared never to be seen again unfortunately. However the track also saw 3 Whinchat, 2 Spotted Flycatcher, 2 Redstart, and a female Bullfinch and from the hide 3 Spotted Redshank and a Greenshank were noted. At RSPB Lytchett Fields another scares Woodpecker showed its self when a Lesser-spotted Woodpecker flew across the fields, settled for a short while and then moved on. Lesser-spots do occasionally move with the tit flocks during the autumn so well work keeping an eye out for them. It was also a big Chiff/Willow morning at Lytchett Bay with a combined total of around 150 birds, also 6 Spotted Flycatcher, 5 Whitethroat, 1 Grasshopper Warbler, 3 Whinchat, 1 Wood Sandpiper, 1 Curlew Sandpiper and 2 Ruff all present. A count at Brands Bay saw 170 Teal, 9 Wigeon, 12 Pintail, 6 Greenshank, 49 Dunlin, 2 Common Tern, 2 Sandwich Tern and a surprise single Black Tern. 

Another vis-mig session at South Haven this morning unfortunately didn’t reap the same rewards as yesterday, and in fact Steve Smiths new UK day record for Siskins lasted only one day with Sandwich Bay, in Kent seeing 4520 Siskin yesterday morning! A meager 62 were noted at South Haven, along with 5 Lesser Redpoll, 2 Garden Warbler, 2 Spotted Flycatcher and 2 Wheatear. On the Turlin Moor shore of Lytchett Bay there were 2 each of Redstart, Spotted Flycatcher, and Whitethroat also 15+ Blackcap a few Chiffchaff and plenty of Swallows streaming by. Elsewhere around the site were Stonechat a few Reed Buntings, 2 Cetti’s Warbler, a Kingfisher, 1 Common Sandpiper a few Siskin over and an Osprey high over the bay. On the Brownsea Lagoon 14 Spoonbill, 9 Spotted Redshank, 18 Greenshank, 250+ Avocet and 4 Knot were counted.