Category: Birds

Sometimes absences are more striking than presences. Very few winter visitors here, possibly because climate change makes it unnecessary. At any rate no redwings or fieldfares on the hawthorns, still berried, on the Twin Banks. No lapwing and just one curlew. There was one winner from climate change, though, a Cetti's warbler calling, which stays here all the years now.

First golden plover of the autumn on one of the pools. It's scientific name is Pluvialis, which means 'rain bird', so let's hope it's an omen for a much-needed downpour. I'm signing off for a while now, so please keep the observations coming.

Flushed a short-eared owl from the foreshore between SS and East Lane at about 1600hrs. First of the autumn, but from where?

The linnet flock on the grassland past the Beacons is now 100 strong. Joined today by a wheatear passing through and perching occasionally on the memorial bench.

A pied flycatcher in the trees round the allotment patch. Probably a migrant from Scandinavia. Can be hard to spot because they move restlessly in the upper branches, but often call – a high pic-pik followed by some ticking notes (OK, not very helpful, sorry, but once you've learned it you can locate them much more easily).

There's been a fall of migrant birds down the east coast with the change in the weather. Pied flycatchers and whinchats have been seen in SS, so look out for wrynecks too in the next few days

A barn owl hunting along the dykes at the back just after dusk at 2100 hrs. A relief to see since they've been rare this summer. Maybe rodent population affected by drought?

It seems that stonechats have nested successfully at each end of SS, a pair by the Coastguards in the North and behind the Martello in the South. They sit up very helpfully on the topmost spray of bushes and call, as the name suggests, like two stones being crunched together.

Nightjars are still churring on the Heath, but only intermittently now as they near the end of their season. Still exciting to have one glide past in the gloaming, though, doing its own moth-catching.

Various people have asked me about the dense flock of 'black' birds that keeps whooshing around in a tightly-packed formation, settling occasionally on the wires like something out of Hitchcock's The Birds. They're starlings, a mixed flock of adults and juveniles (the brown ones). Quite good to see them in fact since starling numbers in Britain have declined sharply in recent years.