Jackie and I visited eleven locations in September not all of them were necessarily productive but none-the-less we added species to our year list. On the 1st we went over to Stanpit Marsh but we missed the tide and the birds had gone into the marsh to roost which made it hard to pick them out amongst the long marsh grasses. The highlight here was our first Grey Plover of the year which a really smart summer plumages individual though there was a few signs that it had started it's autumn moult. We had been there sometime scanning looking for the reported Curlew Sandpiper but we couldn't find them anywhere but as a consolation an Osprey came over and quartered the harbour and gave us pretty good views as it dived to catch fish
eventually it was successful and flew up towards the River Avon. Jackie found our only Wheatear of the day which was in around the gorse patch on Crouch Hill. Otherwise it was very much the usual species that were to be found. Jackie and I popped around to Mudeford Quay to the public loos and had a view across the harbour to see if we could add anything and got lucky finding two Curlew Sandpiper and five Knot on the sandbar which finished the mornings birding off very nicely.
We had a morning walk out to Old Harry from Studland on the 7th where we had good numbers of Whitethroat and a steady passage of Swallow, House Martin and a few Sand Martin making their way South for the coming winter. We also had a couple of Wheatear out on the head and we had the usual gull species. It was the insects that were the highlight with our first Clouded Yellow Butterflies and my first Field Sand Digger Wasp Mellinus arvensis which I found as it took a fly on some bracken which it will take back to her burrow as food for her young after she lays her egg on to the fly.
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| Clouded Yellow Ballard Down © Nick Hull |
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| Sand Digger Wasp Mellinus arvensis Ballard Down © Nick Hull |
Our next visit was out of county to Keyhaven and Pennington Marsh, it has always been a bit of a favourite site for us particularly in the autumn as you always can find a good assortment of birds there almost at anytime of year. Our target species here was Spotted Redshank but as always we were finding everything but this species. We found Little Stint, Curlew Sandpiper and a forty or so Yellow Wagtail on Pennington Marsh but it wasn't until we were making out way back to the Keyhaven car park that I spotted a wader in the back of the Fishtail lagoon and scoping it found our target bird a Spotted Redshank. I know they aren't a particularly scarce species but we seemed to been missing them in the field pools at Lytchett so it was nice to get it on the year list.
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| Male Kestrel Keyhaven © Nick Hull |
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| Wheatear - Keyhaven © Nick Hull |
We ended the month with a walk around Greenlands Farm and back via the Agglestone Rock with the only highlights being a couple of Crossbill and Wheatear and a single Whitethroat.
NocMig
Since I started recording the sounds of birds on nocturnal migration going over Lytchett Bay I've recorded an assortment of different species from Common and Green Sandpiper, Redshank, Greenshank and Spotted Redshank, Whimbrel, Curlew, Redwing, Fieldfare and Song Thrush, Ring Ouzel and Pied Flycatcher, the Pied Flycatcher was possibly the best I've record up till now.
Other friends who have been doing NocMic recording around the harbour have recorded a number of Ortolan Bunting but not me, well until now that is. Because on the morning of the 5th September at 01:46hrs I found 5 calls from a single bird flying past and comparing the sonogram with recordings on the Sound Approach website they appeared to match an Ortolan Bunting. I sent a copy of the audio to Paul at the Sound Approach who was able to confirm the record as being indeed a Ortolan Bunting. At last I had joined the Ortolan Club.
Four days later I was going through the nights recording as before and came across another recording of what sounded like another bunting passing over this one was slightly closer and at a quieter time of the morning at 03:05hrs the sonogram looked slightly different but it was within the correct frequency range but I wasn't 100% so sent off another audio file to Paul and yes a second record of Ortolan Bunting for the Lytchett Bay airspace.
What will be next?
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