9th November 2009

Very little wind and quite foggy at times this morning and as a result quite a lot of Hilbre scarcities were logged today, although most of the grounded 14 Blackbirds, 5 Song Thrushes and a female Blackcap cleared off not long after dawn leaving most records referring to flyovers.
Across overhead were 19 Skylarks, 450 Starlings, 5 Redwings, a Stock Dove, 9 Greenfinches, 7 Chaffinches, 2 Lesser Redpolls and a Reed Bunting. A party of 3 Snipe flew west over the north end of the island.
A drake Eider showed briefly at the north end, 16 Wigeon in total moved around the shore and a Lapwing stayed some time with the oystercatchers on the east hoyle bank.
The Brent with the red and blue colour rings (left) was definitely identified as the Dublin ringed bird from last winter that also showed briefly early last month. It would be interesting to know where it has been for the last few weeks.
Ringed:- 1 Blackbird, 1 Meadow Pipit
(DB,CJ etal) [583] photo CJ

8th November 2009

A Raven was being mobbed by the crows at the marine lake car park this morning (left), and it or another was seen from the island to fly over Middle Eye later. Also over the shore were several finches high up at least one of which by the call was a Brambling.

Very little on the island just single Blackbird, Song Thrush, Goldfinch, and Greenfinch, 2 Dunnocks (below), and 7 Robins, with 4 Skylarks and 5 Starlings passing through, all a little disappointing for a north easterly wind at this time of year.

On the sea was only a single Great Crested Grebe and several Common Scoter moving about distantly. Purple Sandpipers (5 seen) and Brent Geese (102) were hard to count at low tide, the Brent also being affected by human activities (left).

Later on just before the tide a Great Northern Diver was observed by one member flying across Little Eye.

Ringed:- 1 Song Thrush.

(DB+ESCA, CJ,NDW,PSW,SRW,+ CJW,TGW) [581] photos CJ

7th November 2009

A pleasant morning in the sunshine (left - a group of Knot among the Oystercatchers and a few Brent). Five hundred Cormorants flew over at dawn, a Peregrine was present and Brent seemed to be over the hundred mark although an exact count was not possible.

A Song Thrush (right) was ringed that had a particularly long wing length that probably made it a male, but it is not normally possible to sex these at all, although it was certainly a bird of the year as the obvious two generations of greater coverts show (left).

A Coot was later seen from the mainland to fly over the island, a very rare Hilbre bird indeed !

(JE) [580] photos JE

6th November 2009

A winter plumage Black-throated Diver was off the west side this morning and 2 fairly distant Slavonian Grebes were also seen. A Slavonian Grebe was also seen from Red Rocks to be off bird rock at noon (per MGT) but despite looking this could not be located from the Hilbre direction, nevertheless it was probably one of the 2 seen from Hilbre previously.
Most of the other sea observations were more routine :- 11 Common Scoters,10 Wigeon, 9 Great Crested Grebes, 1 Red Breasted Merganser and a Shag.
The Brents were counted at least 97, one of which intriguingly was sporting a red or orange ring. It will be looked for in the coming days.
Passerines were few but 215 Starlings were noted passing and a Rock Pipit was still at the north end also a Chaffinch around the paddocks.
(CS)

5th November 2009

Early today 11 Whooper Swans flew across Middle in a southwesterly direction obviously heading for Wales.
A flock of 800 Starlings kept up the recent records of numbers passing Hilbre these last few weeks, and more went through in smaller numbers later.
The sea produced a single late Gannet and an adult and juvenile Kittiwake, also 4 Great Crested Grebes, 2 Guillemots and 2 Common Scoter.
An exact count of the Brent was possible today and amazingly it was precisely 100, just as estimated yesterday!
(DB)

4th November 2009

A Snow Bunting flew from the north end towards Red Rocks before 09:00hrs and at high tide 182 Turnstones were present and the Purple Sandpipers had increased to 11 birds while Cormorants were also at a new high of 830 over the entire area.
The Brents were estimated at 100 but an exact count was not possible due to fragmentation of the flock but there were certainly more birds than yesterday.
(DB)

3rd November 2009

The 4 Purple Sandpipers are still present today, also seen were flocks of 20 and 12 Wigeon, 2 Peregrines and a Little Egret.
The Brent increased dramatically to 76 birds following the change to westerly airflow from Sunday, they have probably been waiting for suitable conditions for migration from Greenland/Iceland.
(DB)

1st November 2009

Despite the very strong winds over saturday night, only 7 Common Scoters on the sea and very little else, although good counts were made of 7,000 Knot towards bird rock, 640 Shelduck and 700 Curlew in the Little Eye area.
A female Blackcap braved the unhelpful weather in the paddocks.
(DB,MGT)