Monday 6 April 2015

A Collared Fly day ....... and a lot more besides

Yesterday (5th April) saw a really good mixed arrival, birds were not that obvious early on so many may well have arrived during the course of the day. This is supported by the appearance of a Northern Wheatear on the rocks in front of the lighthouse mid-morning and the arrival of 3 Hoopoe over a half hour period an hour or so later.
Day totals for the headland recording area were: 4 Quail, 22 Hoopoe, 8 Wryneck, 6 Turtle Dove, 2 Woodchat Shrike, 80 Subalpine Warbler, 21 Collared Flycatcher (the majority at Porto Kaghio and Marmari), 11 Pied Flycatcher, 23 Willow Warbler, 6 Wood Warbler, another early Garden Warbler, 35 Blackcap, 9 Whitethroat, 2 Savi's Warbler, 9 Redstart, 21 Northern Wheatear,16 Nightingale, 5 Robin, a single Song Thrush, 9 Tree Pipit, 1 Red-throated Pipit and 4 Tawny Pipit.
The first of this year's moving 'balls' of Spanish Sparrows were observed heading north and 167 individual birds had been seen by the end of the afternoon.
A really excellent watch at the lighthouse saw single Grey Heron come in off the sea, a Purple Heron that landed very briefly before continuing up the east side, 2 Great White Egret did a fly past of the lighthouse and then headed off east, a flock of 35 Glossy Ibis flew east and the second Gannet of the spring, an immature, went west. There was also a fuscus Lesser Black-backed Gull briefly associating with a group of local Yellow-legged Gulls; while a single very distant pale bellied / breasted skua (on a roughly north-westerly heading up the west side) was almost certainly an Arctic Skua but was frustratingly simply too far out to be rated as anything other than 'highly probable'.


Immature Gannet passing Cape Tenaro 5th April 2015

Glossy Ibis flying East at Cape Tenaro 5th April 2015
Raptor passage consisted of the first Montagu's Harrier of the spring, a single Marsh Harrier, an unidentified 'ringtail' Harrier and 5 Kestrel.
Elsewhere a Woodlark was found north of Kokinoghia and the first 3 Cuckoo of the spring were seen and heard between Kokinoghia and Porto Kaghio. There are also 2 Isabelline Wheatear still present and the male Rock Thrush continues to show well above the road between Beehive Pass and Kokinoghia. A Hooded Crow at Paliros in the early afternoon was only the third record in 16 years of spring observations.

A Grey Heron arrives at Cape Tenaro

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