Its been a while since I pulled together my last full 'nocmig' update, mid-May in fact (Local is where its at). So, before autumn migration gets into full swing I thought I'd better take stock.
Since 15th May I've been steadily putting my parabolic microphone out most nights, OK I took a little break during most of June but started again in earnest at the end of that month in anticipation of returning waders and have pretty much stuck at it since then. In fact, I recorded a total of 61 nights out of 95 nights, so if I don't count June that's about 64% of the time.
The above bar chart is probably the easiest way to tell you what I've been seeing. Waders feature prominently as you'd expect. Oystercatcher being the most frequent, but I suspect they are local birds. Common Sandpiper has been the next most frequent with 13 occurences and most of these in the second 2 weeks of August. I especially like this recording, accompanied by a local soccer match.
Curlews moved through in late June and early July and the first Whimbrel appeared in late July but were more frequent in the second half of August.
Dunlin started appearing again in mid-September and so far I've recorded them on 5 nights. In July and August it was pretty easy to find Green Sandpipers in some local wader spots (Potter Heigham, Hickling and Buckenham Marshes for example) but to my surprise I only recorded them once on nocmig. But, a nice vocal individual at that.
The much hoped for Wood Sandpiper never materialised and they've mostly gone through by now.
However, there were a few surprises such as this Common Ringed Plover (scarcer it seems in Norwich than Little Ringed Plover).
and my first Gadwall went over one night in early September.
Plus I had Sandwich Tern on two ocassions in mid-August.
What is so far my nocmig highlight of the year was this Tree Pipit which passed over the garden at 2.18am on Monday 13th September.
Soon we will be in the business end of the autumn for passerine migration. What can I expect? Well, Redwing of course, next month their 'tseep' calls will begin to fill the night sky. Song thrush too and Fieldfare if I'm lucky. I guess there's an outside chance of a returning Ring Ouzel to add to the two birds I got in the spring and if I vizmig after dawn I should start get some winter finches such as Brambling, Chaffinch, Siskin and Lesser Redpoll, I'll keep all fingers crossed for Hawfinch. If that fails at least the local Tawny Owls should continue to get more vocal as we head into November.
