Champions of the Flyway!

Monday, August 1, 2022

Morning migration - Filey, 1st Aug '22

Oystercatchers - lots on the move this morning

What a lovely morning. As mentioned, I've been away a lot lately (and will be again in a couple of weeks), so I'm hoping to make the most of this early autumn window with as much local birding as possible; after hitting the ground running with a Cory's Shearwater (less than annual here) a few days ago, this morning was my next opportunity to dig in and lap it up again, and it didn't disappoint.
A flock of five Little Egrets head south-west and over the bay

A mild, almost windless morning with a flat calm sea and some welcome cloud cover looked good for wader passage, which happily turned out to be the dominant theme: 179 Oystercatchers, 26 Whimbrel, 42 Knot, 21 Turnstones, 27 Dunlins and 23 Redshank (plus smallers numbers of e.g. Ringed Plovers and Curlews) all headed purposefully south, while five Little Egrets and most of the 39 Manxies did likewise. Great views of a Balearic Shearwater were followed by a similarly accommodating juvenile Caspian Gull - both firsts for the year locally - while passerines showed some movement with 21 Swallows south, a Skylark in off the sea, 18 Meadow Pipits and two juvenile Wheatears, one of which I watched bound in over the waves from the north. What a blast.
A flock of Whimbrel heading south over the sea

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