October 16th 2011

My local area was covered in mist early morning so decided to go to Burton Dassett hills and had a good visible migration for 2 hours before it started to dwindle. Wind had turned to the south west but very light and 1500 birds logged though only half were identified with Redwing and Chaffinch in the majority followed by good numbers of Fieldfare, Siskin, Linnet, Skylark, Meadow Pipit and Blackbird while other species included Pied Wagtail, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Lesser Redpoll. Missed the Crossbills the Oxford duo had (good to see you again Gareth), couldn’t clinch a possible Twite, 3 Swallow and 2 Wheatear feeding near the car park.
Napton on the Hill had a fall of Chaffinch with many feeding up before pushing on and a few Redwing and Siskin over. Very little else apart from 5 Buzzard, 7 Raven and 17 Long-tailed Tit.
Martin had this Vulcan Bomber go over the hill.

Napton Reservoir had the Black-necked Grebe, 20 Wigeon and 3 Pochard but missed the Dunlin that went through.
Dave trapped 2 Bulrush Wainscot Friday and 2 Merveille du Jour last night other wise moth catches are very low with only 3 in my trap this morning.
Looks like Draycote’s Spoonbill which left 9:30 Saturday morning and flew over the other side of town to pitch up at Stanford Reservoir on the Northamptonshire/Leicestershire border so could have gone over my garden (I wish).

The Milky Way is showing well tonight.

Richard