24th October 2020

 Weather:   S veering SW    rain heavy at times

With rain and low cloud there wasn’t much hope of catching any migrant passerines (although a single Redwing was seen in the SK paddock and later seen flying south off the island during a brief respite in the weather) today so attention turned to sifting through the increased number of Brent Geese and waders. Grey Plovers were feeding along the edge of the gutter along with Turnstone, Curlew, Redshank and a single Bar-tailed Godwit. One of the Grey Plover was colour flagged LA and is a bird ringed by the SCAN ringing group in March 2019 at Altcar. Both the secretary and chairman of Hilbre Birds Obs were present that day!

The colour ringed Brent goose, Red X Blue T, was feeding on the Whaleback with a large flock of over 180 Brents.

Total numbers around the island today were well over 250 but as they were all spread  out along the reef counting was difficult. This colour ringed Brent was first seen on  4th December 2019 at Hilbre and is known to have been ringed on the breeding grounds in Canada. Dark-bellied Brent Geese were also present and it was noted that one of them has a metal ring on one leg. It would be interesting to try and get better photos over the winter to try and decipher the ring number to see where this bird has originated from.

The only other birds of note today were two Grey Herons, that appeared to be roosting in the bracken on the east side to the south of the Observatory, and at least 120 Shelduck.

 photos PSW