April 30th

30on

Winds from the North West this morning and despite clear skies overnight and the unfavourable wind direction yet more new migrants were upon us again today. On Longis beach there were 2 Bar-tailed Godwits and 3 Whimbrel.

A Grasshopper Warbler was again singing opposite the Obs and a Cuckoo was again in Barrack masters lane. There was a light but steady stream of Hirundines in off the sea all day, we are now seeing a lot more House Martins coming through than Sand Martins. The White Chaffinch has been reported by Julie Maxwell as being regularly seen this week in the Petit Val area.

62 New birds were ringed today, Blackcap again the most abundant of the passage birds with 30, other species ringed included 4 Whitethroats, 1 Lesser Whitethroat, 3 Chiffchaff, 2 Garden Warblers, 2 Common Redstarts, 12 Willow Warblers and 5 Siskin.

The new ringed birds totals since we began the Alderney Bird Observatory ringing program 4th March 2016 are below: At close of play 30th APRIL 16′ we have ringed 3302 birds from 45 species and had 13 Controls. With the volume of birds we are processing it was always likely we would see a few unusual birds along the way but the stand out figures for me at the end of our first 2 months are firstly the staggering numbers of Willow Warblers of which we are now just shy of ringing 1000 individuals, also 43 Common Redstart and 96 Firecrest have been ringed. We have been lucky with the weather being able to open nets most days and as such most of my birding has been from the Observatory ramparts whilst ringing or whilst completing net rounds. My stand out moments thus far were a pair of White Storks on 1st April that flew over the obs and considered landing on Longis common before heading out to sea towards the short hop to France mobbed by Crows and Gulls. Also, amongst the many impressive falls of passerines and visual migration that seems to be standard practise on this island,  was a single flock of 17 Ring Ouzels, amazing. If Carlsberg made bird observatories……