Monday 27 October 2014

Bog all at Boghall. Still

Boghall is dire. Nothing of note for months but lots of goldcrest and redwing this weekend. It's been a good autumn off the patch though, including the joint charity gig we did on Shetland with Derek and Royza (and Seppy, on the fiddle as always). Progress has been hampered by a broken toe which mean that Boghall is, literally, limping along.


Tuesday 21 October 2014

News from Shakey

Some news from Shakey - not only has he been to the pub this lunchtime, he also managed to calculate his accumulated score for this year and is even in third place too! This is a bit of a bugger, as I only asked him for an update as I reckoned I 'd be safely ahead of him! Ah well, can't win 'em all!

Sunday 19 October 2014

Acceleration

I've been very busy this, a hectic recording schedule (mostly abroad). So my visits to the wondrous patch have been few and far between, and definitely have nothing to do with the three year average rule. Languishing well under 100 species until last week, I've been on a bit of a bender and clocked five new ones in the last two weeks, including two full-fatters - Woodlark and Lapland Bunting contained no repetition whatsoever. So this takes me up to 102 for the year with the winter season to come. The recording schedule continues apace however, with panel game shows in Tenerife, Morocco and the UAE to come. Oh, and Glasgow.

88.95%

Thursday 16 October 2014

more of it

Yesterday was hard work but eventually managed to pin down two yellow browed warblers as well as adding redwing, black redstart, and ring ouzel to the year list - think I may be ahead of Nimmo!

Wednesday 15 October 2014

struggling on

The October dearth of birds finally ran out yesterday as I successfully netted (football parlance, not ringing parlance) a yellow browed warbler at Shite Lane and then a tree pipit over - the pipit is about my 6th here I think - rarer than ybw! Anyhoo, together with siskin and redpoll, these are the only year ticks so far this October. Puts me back into 5th spot, just ahead of Bushveld for now. Hoping for a bucketload more this arvo when the rain clears...

Monday 13 October 2014

Thrashing the Patch

A good spell of easterlies brought in a few migs

best of the bunch being a rather nice little bunting at Bullers of Buchan and is currently bird of the year for me.

Other birds included a flighty Richards pipit, a long over due yellow-browed warbler and some Lapland buntings.

There's been so many year ticks I can't remember them all but in total an additional 12 year ticks on the patch since my last posting…. Awesome

With some easterlies this week and a touch of rain on Thursday should bring a few more in

108 sp
83.08%

Happy days

Bushveld


Sunday 12 October 2014

Having a Barnie

It's been hard work - the mig-fest last week did bring lots of Robins, Song Thrushes and Goldcrests but only a handful of other stuff and a single Yellow-browed wasn't a year tick. Three bread-and-butter birds added this week, though, all overdue, with Grey Wag, Siskin and Barnacle Geese - all southbound.



Now on 116 species (=91.82%)

Statto

Saturday 4 October 2014

It's been a while...

I've been waiting a while to post an update on the blog in the vain hope that I'll have some interesting to say.  Unfortunately I don't.

Since the first mig of the autumn in the form of garden warbler on 12 August.  There's been precious little to report from Longhaven.   You would have thought that there's been enough birds in the region and there's definitely enough habitat to have kicked something up at Longhaven, but alas not.  To make matters worse The ol' bill Reg and Roy the boy scored an R-B Fly on the patch (poaching bastards) and there's been a yellow-browed.  Both of which I dipped.

The best of the picks so far this autumn have been:  Tree pipit, Bullfinch, L. whitey, whinchat, chiffchaff etc etc.  So all in all… all rather uninspiring.

Totals so far -  96,  73.85%

Happy days (sort of).  

Thursday 2 October 2014

last lap

Checking Dirk for rare american passerines this am really paid off when 2 lapwings flew over! Hell Yeah! Year tickage baby!

Quiet on the american passerine front tho, sadly...