Spring has almost sprung!

The southerly airflow during the latter half of the week produced the first noticeable flush of migrants, the most obvious being the number of Garganey that made landfall and quickly moved north. The largest group was a party of 10 that were seen on 11 March at Grove Ferry, Kent. These were joined by Sand Martins, a few Swallows, House Martins and Little Ringed Plovers.

Little Ringed Plover by Marc Albiac

Mid-week saw a huge overnight thrush movement in the eastern half of the country with lots of observers reporting Redwings and Fieldfares heard going over during the hours of darkness. Interestingly, among these were reports of Wigeon doing the same.

The first southern overshoots arrived in the form of Alpine Swifts in Co Cork and Kent, and the first Hoopoes in Co Kerry and Dorset. Pride of place has to go to the Baillon’s Crake that was seen coming in off the sea in Cornwall and spending a short  time walking around rocks on the beach at St Levan before heading off west, never to be seen again.  This is a migrant with less than 100 records in the last 100 years!

Hoopoe by Richard Nuernberger

Several early birds were also seen that included a few Willow Warblers, the first Redstarts and Yellow Wagtail, a few Ring Ouzel and the first Cuckoo (in West Sussex). Our seven satellite-tagged Cuckoos are all still south of the Sahara.

Cuckoo by Edmund Fellowes

The forecast for the next three or four days isn’t very conducive for much migration. Wet and windy weather from the north-west will seemingly dominate but there will be moments of quieter weather in between the weather fronts when birds ought to move.

So, what might we expect? The weekend isn’t looking great but early next week we should see some migration. Wheatears are tough little birds and will take any opportunity and we could see them arriving in better numbers than has been the case so far, along with more Sand Martins and Swallows, and the first real movement of Sandwich Terns. There has been a small migration of Painted Lady butterflies too and we can look forward to seeing more of these over the next week or so.

Painted Lady by John Harding