October 2nd 2009

Woke early too broken cloud so did Napton on the Hill and witnessed the first visible migration of the autumn with Snow Bunting, 34 Skylark, 2 Redwing, 6 Fieldfare, 32 Swallow and 2 House Martin all flying south over the windmill/quarry area of the hill. Unfortunately it clouded over and migration trickled to a halt.
When I arrived home Francoise brought round a possible female November Moth she had trapped last night. I’m only saying poss as I don’t believe in dissecting the poor buggers wedding tackle to eliminate confusion species Pale November Moth and Autumnal Moth.

November Moth agg. by Bob Hazell
I met up with Dave in the afternoon for coffee at Draycote Water meeting up with Mo & Terry for a chat before walking out to toft bay. The Lesser Scaup was still in grays barn but the distance and with one drab bird resembling another drab bird you really need to walk to grey barn to get a reasonable but restrictive look. Unfortunately on our return to the café at 4pm there were some walkers who walked the whole stretch of the grays barn/toft bay shoreline so hopefully it has not cleared off.
There were still 3 Yellow Wagtail among the 30+ Meadow Pipit and 3 House Martins over toft bay and the only other birds of note were female Goldeneye, 2 Raven and Buzzard.
We went to check on the pipit field along hill rd in the valley but the farmer has now rolled it and not a pip in sight. Further on there were plenty of Skylark and Yellowhammers with the odd Meadow Pipit.

Richard