Winds continued from the West but had dropped considerably by this morning. A female Pied Flycatcher was in Longis beach car park as I headed out to open the nets between the Obs and Essex Farm where a couple of Siskin also passed over. There was a Nightingale singing in the thickets behind the sewage works drowning out the voices of serveral singing Sedge and Willow Warblers. Barbara Beynon reported hearing a cuckoo this morning down in LA Vallee road and also spotted what she described as a fair sized flock Yellow wagtails in the ploughed field at the bottom of Tourgis Hill. Yellow Wagatils certainly featured today with the visiting Avian adventures group reporting a flock of 8 that included a Blue headed and several other individual birds were spotted and reported from across the island. The wildlife touring group also reported excellent views of a Hobby yesterday evening and another belated report was from Robert of the AWT team who heard a Grasshopper Warbler reeling at dusk at the bottom of the golf course opposite the Obs. Robert also had a Lesser Whitethroat at the sewage works this morning, a single passage flock of 22 House martins and brief views a probable Goshawk this afternoon. Also this afternoon there was again Nightingale song this time from Longis Nature reserve where there were at least three Common Redstarts, a furhter 3 Common Redsarts were reported from Mannez Quarry nature reserve.

Ringing took place on all three of our sites at various times today. 137 New birds were ringed in total from 20 Species. The day began well in Essex farm with a UK ringed ‘control’ Sedge Warbler. This was followed by a cracking male Western Subalpine Warbler. There was a good fall of a wide variety of migrants dominated by Blackcap 48  and Willow Warbler 39, other species ringed included 1 Garden Warbler, 12 Sedge Warbler, 1 Reed Warbler, 1 Spotted Flycatcher, 9 Whitethroat, 7 Chiffchaff, 3 Common Redstart, 1 Swallow, 1 Song Thrush and 1 Linnet. Late in the afternoon we had our first Yellow Wagail in the nets. Todays total took us over 3100 new ringed birds since 4th March. See Ringers pages for full totals of new birds ringed today.

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1st yr male Yellow Wagtail – Longis Nature Reserve

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1st yr male Western Subalpine Warbler – Essex Farm

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