Wheatears and a Whinchat

Early morning yomps around the Marshes have been very quiet over the past couple of days, very quiet indeed. Both early wake ups have been somewhat saved by sea watches afterwards, although neither produced any year ticks. 

Yesterday morning 45 minutes of looking over a flat calm sea gave (west unless stated); 

1 Great Crested Grebe (flew in from miles out and landed on the sea - so should have been a Red-necked!)

1 Shelduck 

4 Common Scoter (east)

4 Whimbrel

1 Knot

And an hour this morning gave (west unless stated); 

3 Great Northern Diver (my first of the spring - one in summer plumage)

10 Common Scoter (east)

18 Sandwich Tern (including a lovely close fishing flock of 11)

1 Common Sandpiper

1 Kingfisher (flew west about 20m offshore - a weird sight!)

1 Wheatear (flew in off)

Portland have had a stormingly good day today for migrants, which you'd expect considering the cloudy weather and date. But most places here have been quiet, except for Colyford Common which was hopping with birds!  Thanks to a text from Dad I was pleased to enjoy our first Whinchat of the spring and 16 Wheatear mid afternoon...

A distant but very attractive male Whinchat!

The Wheatears showed such an amazing variety of plumages and sizes, in particular the males. There were small dark ones just like the birds we see in March, and other really pale and absolute monster Greenland fellas. Some of these have such restricted colour on their front that they almost look like Eastern Black-eared Wheatears. 'Wheatear of the day' for me was the bird in the bottom left of this pic...

Some of the females were clearly Greenland-types too, as they looked large and leggy...

The few other interesting bits and bobs from today included a Green Sandpiper on a pool near Boshill Cross, four Whimbrel on Colyford Marsh and at least three new singing male Reed Warblers in. I did see/hear the odd Willow Warbler this afternoon, but nowhere near enough to claim a fall.  It was nice to finally see all seven Cattle Egrets together, on the Estuary early this morning...

   

Wheatears...

2014 has easily been my worst spring for Wheatears on patch.  I didn't see my first until 10th April (almost a month later than other years!) and have only seen four since. In previous springs I've see four times as many in an hour on Beer Head, or on one fence line at Seaton Marshes!  I'm not sure why it's been so poor, as other sites have had them, but it's not just me, Ian M was saying exactly the same this morning.

After this morning though, I now feel like I've had the best ever spring for Wheatears! And it's all thanks to this beastie...

WOW!!!!!!

The Firecrest and Redstarts have all been fab, and much more than I expected, but for me this is the highlight so far. Not just because of it's stunning plumage, it's was just a really lovely bird to handle. 

Better still, wing length (104mm) weight (38g) and plumage (amount of black in tail, rusty edge to upper mantle feathers) puts this bird safely in the Greenland Wheatear (sub sp. leucorhoa) camp.  So not only has it flown all the way from South Africa, it's now got to get to Greenland - maybe even Canada!  

Other than this, it was a very quiet ringing session. There were clearly no migrants in the bushes, a single Blackcap trapped and ringed was the only other migrant I netted today. Overhead a few Swallows and a single Yellow Wag were as good as it got. 

But this fantastic capture has shown me that even if it is quiet at Beer Head, it always worth having the nets up as you just never know.