UKC

This morning. Flying into the sun. Male judging by its size. 
Ed: colour looks female like. Hard to tell high up and  in shadow. 

Went to check the gulls out. Four Med gulls in this photo. Brilliant stuff. And some young rabbits. Bloody cold again - love it!  No redwings for first time this year - may have flown back. 

Interesting- would a north-easterly wind not put them off? (It’d put me off 🙂)

Possibly. Hardy birds though. 

I thought that was what brings them from Russia.

Just wanted to say thank you BC for this little stream of Avian goodness.  I really enjoy seeing these threads when I get a few seconds to look into them.

Also as I figure the crossover from this thread is pretty big from those who posted on my 'recommend me a spotting scope' thread a while back...On my birthday a couple of days ago I went to the local in-focus (would not have know about it were it not for UKC, a shed in an industrial estate miles from anywhere) and bought a pair of opticron bins.  Broke the bank but oh my so wonderful to use : ) 

So thanks all for the advice everyone!

.. or drives them back South for a few hundred km.

Last year I attended a guest lecture at my uni about tracking the migration of individual, transmitter tagged songbirds along the Dutch/German/Danish North sea coast using an array of antennas normally used for air traffic control.

The surprising finding was that even in normal weather the migration is anything but linear, but individual birds would migrate two hops forward and one back, sometimes moving out to Helgoland or the North Frisian Islands before dropping back across the sea to the Dutch mainland.

In inclement weather, in particular rain and headwind, many birds would allow themselves to drift backwards in small hops even out of range of the tracking area, presumably to France.

CB

Good stuff. Keep us posted with your sightings. 

Unusual sightings for the wrong reasons …
Saw this grey wag tail (female?) yesterday with what appears to be a growth instead of a right foot. Seemed happy feeding though and didn’t have a problem walking on it.

Also, seen two Dunnocks in a week that seem to have Avian pox sadly. This one was very lethargic in front of me so probably was suffering sadly.

Little Ringed Plovers on Friday - not great photos, into the light and I need to practice using the smartphone holder on my scope.

Also saw some Brambling from the hide with all the feeders at Pennington Flash - excellent views especially since one of the males came really close - no pictures I'm afraid.