April for me has been utterly disappointing. It started in the worst way possible with me missing what would have been a quality patch year tick - Glaucous Gull. I won't go into details, but it was a very painful miss as I could have seen the bird from my bedroom window and I was at home. But I am glad that finally we have had a scarcer gull on patch this year, because we have been looking daily, it just hasn't happened. Well until April 1st... and I didn't see it :-(.
Ok, so how could April get worse? Well believe it or not, I have not had a single patch year tick so far this month. With the exception of the first few weeks of the year, I would say April is the most prolific month for a year lister - and in other years by this date I would have seen up to ten more summer migrant species than I have this year. And I have been trying - we all have - it is just dire out there! I still need Willow Warbler for crying out loud!!
I've had three early morning sea watches this month, a few Sandwich Tern and the odd Red-throated Diver and Common Scoter were all I came away with.
On Beer Head yesterday, and this morning, it honestly could have been January. On both days a single Chiffchaff was the only summer migrant I saw. There was a bit of vis mig yesterday morning, with a few Mipits, Chaffinches, Goldfinches and alba Wagtails over east, but very little really. The sunrise was quite spectacular though...
So where are all the migrants!? I have been
thinking that this hold up will produce some exceptional falls (whenever
it comes!), but now I am starting to wonder. If everything is grounded,
and feeding up, when they do move on they will be well fed and in a
hurry to get to their breeding grounds. So, could this hold up be costing us our spring?
Sorry for so much negativity readers, I do hope this will change soon...
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