Bar-tailed Godwit on the night of 7th / 8th Aug - one of many decent early autumn nights:
It may not seem like it - blame the pandemic for warping our timeline - but apparently, August was month five of my local nocturnal migration (Nocmig) adventures; the flipside, of course, being that you can also partially blame the pandemic for inspiring my toe-dipping into this addictive and fascinating aspect of my birding experience in the first place. Silver Linings....
The following night saw a major Oystercatcher movement throughout (the estimate doubtless a tiny proportion of the birds involved)
Sanderlings featured heavily, with a big movement of various flocks on the night of 11th:
Filey North Cliff
After starting recording ten days into July (and clocking an encouraging range of early season migration - see here), August was my first full month of nocmig up on the North Cliff here in Filey. My intention was to try and record a few nights each week, but it was entertaining and productive enough to inspire pretty much nightly efforts (only postponed when the weather/wind was especially poor or when circumstances got in the way).
Migrating flocks of Turnstones were a feature of several August nights
Happily, the extra effort of dropping off in the evening and picking up in the morning has been very much worthwhile - every night has produced (even in poor conditions), and the species dynamic was, as expected, dominated by numerous shorebird registrations.
Of those, highlights included both Bar-tailed and Black-tailed Godwits, Greenshank, two Common and four Green Sandpipers, a handful of Knot, plenty of Turnstones, Redshank and Sanderlings, lots of Dunlins, Whimbrels and Curlews, several Knot, and many, many Oystercatchers ....
Wildfowl were few and far between, but did include the telltale somewhat grumpy mutterings of Gadwall on 31st:
Landbirds were pretty much non-existent, with just the odd errant nocturnal passerine call likely belonging to local birds, but an unexpected bonus came on the night of 16th, when a Short-eared Owl wailed over the recorder - coinciding with an influx of along the coast over the same 48 hours. Result!
Filey Town
With the gulls at full, tortuous velocity, much of August was always going to be a trying exercise, and many nights were effectively void on account of the wall-to-wall banshee audio-hell. But, with perhaps more effort than could be justified from a mental health perspective, there were little diamonds to be found in the mine (or at least, a few semi-precious stones).
I tentatively re-opened (figuratively and literally) on the 14th, again by jamming the recorder into the crack of the open study window, pointing up into the ether above the back alley here in the exclusively bricks-and-mortar environs of Filey town. The nightly sonograms were not pretty, and a less committed / more balanced soul would've deleted them at first sight and gone and done something arguably far more productive, but in amongst the haystack, there were needles to be found.
Not the impressive roll-call of the spring perhaps, but registations included Sandwich and Common Terns, Water Rail and Coot, Turnstone and Knot, Ringed and Little Ringed Plovers, Curlew and Whimbrel, Common Sandpipers and Redshank - but the highlight, right at the end of the month, was a single Tree Pipit - a much-anticipated (if hardly mega) long-distance passerine migrant and a welcome addition to the scorecard.
You can find daily counts from my Nocmig efforts on Trektellen here, and my sound recordings on Xeno-Canto here.
