Annual migration

I've been away from the patch for the last couple of weeks on my near-annual migration to Tarifa in southern Spain to witness the spectacle that is the raptor migration across the Straits of Gibraltar as birds of prey from Europe travel south to Africa for winter.

Conditions were very good for the birds for the first half of the trip, with tens of thousands of birds passing through but high - like hayflies as Alan Gilbertson describes them. These were mostly honey buzzards and black kites with short-toed eagles, booted eagles, Egyptian vultures, sparrowhawks and griffon vultures. When the wind blows, which it does a lot in the Straits, the birds drop lower (especially in the Levante wind from the East which could blow them into the Atlantic) bringing them closer to the observers and photographers who are also there in great numbers.

As well as raptors there are migrating storks, waterbirds and passerines alongside the resident birds in the peninsula.

This photo sums up Tarifa for me, on the good days they just keep coming at you...

A group of black kites migrating through Tarifa

There are hundreds more photos to sort which I will eventually get onto my Flickr account.

We've had news from the BTO about a robin we ringed in July last year, it was still in juvenile plumage when we caught it so will have hatched at Druridge. Sadly it was found dead last week in Redcar, where presumably it had taken up residence. Even though Robin is the second-most commonly caught bird by us at Druridge, this is the first ever recovery we've had.

The BTO have also released the annual ringing report for 2017 which you can find on their website.

The report gives ringing totals by species and area and list notable recoveries of birds including a report of a Leach's Petrel we caught in in July 2016 at Druridge (read about it here) which was already ringed, having been caught on Inner Farne two tears earlier. The same bird was caught again on Inner Farne in July 2016, ten days before we caught it at Druridge and it was caught again in July 2017 way up at Sumburgh in the Shetland Islands. Recoveries like this give us a fantastic insight into the movements of these seabirds. Here are the details:

BX91489 Adult 29-07-2014    Inner Farne, Farne Islands: 55°36'N 1°40'W (Northumberland)
Caught by ringer 01-08-2014    Inner Farne, Farne Islands: 55°36'N 1°40'W (Northumberland)   0km   0y 0m 3d
Caught by ringer 20-07-2016    Inner Farne, Farne Islands: 55°36'N 1°40'W (Northumberland)   0km   1y 11m 21d
Caught by ringer 30-07-2016    Druridge Links: 55°15'N 1°34'W (Northumberland)   40km   S   2y 0m 1d
Caught by ringer 26-07-2017    Sumburgh: c. 59°51'N 1°17'W (Shetland)   473km   N   2y 11m 27d

Arriving, departing or just passing through

I like this time of year - birds are on the move. I am fascinated by migration and at this time of year we have birds arriving, freshly returned from their wintering areas in Europe or Africa. We have birds that have spent the winter here in Northumberland moving on to breed in continental Europe or high into the Arctic tundra. And we have birds passing through our patch, on their way from wintering grounds to breeding areas - just stopping on their way or flying overhead.

This weekend has seen the arrival of a few summer visitors onto the patch - chiffchaffs are singing, a stunning male yellow wagtail was in the dunes (my earliest Druridge record by four days) - he may of course be just passing through and swallows and sand martins have increased in number. There's a lot more skylarks and meadow pipits around too.

Birds just passing through include wheatears, these early ones will probably be staying in the UK, soon the Greenland race will pass through - headed for much more northerly climes.

Some of the birds leaving us include whooper swans and pink-footed geese - the five remaining whoopers that have been in the front field for the last month or so have gone this afternoon. A skein of 60 pink-foots flew high to the north and about 30 whoopers passed through in the same direction today. Wigeon and teal numbers have decreased rapidly but there are still about 120 curlew in the vicinity of the Pools.

A jack snipe was out in front of the Budge screen this morning, probably its last stopping point before crossing the North Sea as it heads for its breeding grounds. I love jack snipes and this one gave us some great views, watch it bobbing in this video.

Jack Snipe Druridge 100416 from Iain Robson on Vimeo.

There's been a huge influx of black-headed gulls onto the Budge fields this weekend and with them some Mediterranean gulls. For my WeBS count today  I estimated 750 BHGs and there were a minimum of four Meds. Jonathan Farooqi counted a minimum of ten Meds yesterday - easily a patch record.

There'll no doubt be some more arrivals in the next few days, willow warbler is overdue - it will soon be followed by the other warblers from Africa.

Patch year list is 107 species.

Blackcap - To Biarritz...and back!

I've got some really interesting news of a returning blackcap, but first a round-up of the weekend on the patch.

On Friday evening there, autumn wader passage was underway with a greenshank and ruff on the Budge fields, an avocet and a single black-tailed godwit were also present and an adult little egret was feeding.

Adult little egret feeding on Budge fields

A grasshopper warbler was 'reeling' from the umbellifers on the dune-back opposite the path to the Budge screen - it was still reeling today from 5am to midday!

Offshore, there were at least five roseate terns fishing, which isn't surprising given that there are over 100 pairs nesting on nearby Coquet Island. I also saw my first Arctic skua of the year, harrying the terns.

Red admiral

There are a lot more butterflies on the wing now that summer has arrived. Ringlet, small skipper, meadow brown, wall, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, speckled wood were all seen and,today, my first dark-green fritillaries of the year.

As it rained for much of yesterday morning, I put my patch-visit off until the evening. On the edge of the patch, between Bell's farm and the plantation, I stopped to watch some swift passage - a steady stream of these early migrants headed south. Whilst scanning them, a strikingly dark swallow flew past me. I watched it for while, it was male, but the underparts were much more chestnut/orange than any other barn swallow I've seen. It almost reminded me of the North American race, but it had a good, dark breast-band. It was certainly a striking bird, but I don't think it was anything other than a darker than average rustica.

A 'bog-standard' swallow taking a feather to line it's nest

On the Budge fields there were 28 black-tailed godwit and yesterdays ruff and a new ringed plover. A male marsh harrier flew in and started hunting over the Budge field, scattering some duck and lapwings.

male marsh harrier hunting over the Budge fields

Also of note were five large shoveler youngsters. I've seen this on previous years at Druridge, where a female shoveler will turn up late in the summer with well-grown young. I am not sure if these birds were capable of flight, but they were nearing adult size, so they probably were.

Today, I got up early and put some nets up to ring birds. I didn't catch much, I presume a lot of the warblers are sat tight on second broods. I caught 14 new birds, all but two of which were juveniles. I would have expected to have caught more young warblers (I caught two backcaps and a chiffchaff), I think the prolonged cold spring and erratic storms may have done for some first broods.

Between net-rounds I had a scan from the dunes and picked up a small falcon flying west. I automatically assumed it would be a kestrel, but when I put my bins on it I was surprised to see a fine adult hobby. It had a small bird of some species in its talons (maybe a sand martin, there were a lot of them), it continued west over the bushes and turned south with it's prey, maybe looking for somewhere suitable to deal with it?

So, to the story of the blackcap. I retrapped a female breeding blackcap today, which we ringed as a juvenile last year. This got me thinking about thinking about the blackcap that we ringed that ended up in France (read the story here http://ipinswildlifeblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-french-connection.html ) and whether it may have come back, so I checked our retraps for the year and it has!

Y540945 was ringed as a juvenile male on the 27th August by me and James Common, we caught it again on the 5th September. On 25th September it was caught by a ringer 1251km in Landes near Biarritz in France.

Looking at our retraps for this year I discovered that Y540945 has returned! I caught it on 9th June as breeding male. This is the first time we have ever had a long-distance migrant trapped elsewhere other than Druridge, return to our site. Isn't migration amazing!

130 greenshank
131 Arctic skua
132 hobby