17th-24th October

During the last week the weather pretty much gave us what was forecast, westerly airflow across much of the country with some easterly winds in the north. The predicted movement of Siskins came to fruition, a record 5,740 were recorded flying over Sheringham, Norfolk on the 13^th, with another 1,527 over Spurn, East Yorkshire on the same day. Grey Phalaropes were also on the move with birds being found in 16 different counties but with the majority in the south and southwest.

The predicted Siberian Rubythroat was also found when a male arrived on Shetland on 16^th. Although none of the North American thrushes put in a showing plenty of new North American landbirds were found, including a Rose Breasted Grosbeak, a Myrtle Warbler and an east coast Red-eyed Vireo.

During periods of lighter winds thrushes from the east arrived in force with high counts of Redwings and Song Thrushes from several east coast watchpoints, accompanied by the first big movement of Ring Ouzels.

Ring Ouzel BirdTrack reporting rate graph

Species focus

Whooper Swan is amongst the heaviest of migratory birds, males caught in Britain weigh on average 10.2kg. The vast majority of birds wintering in Britain come from Iceland, where the population is estimated at around 16,000 birds. A few of these remain in Iceland throughout the winter but this only involves around 1,500 birds. The 800km sea crossing between Britain and Iceland is probably the longest undertaken by any swan species, six satellite tagged swans took between 12.7 hours and 42.4 hours to complete the journey. Around 200 birds from the Fennoscandian and western Russian population winter in Britain, with the vast majority wintering in continental Europe.

Whooper Swan by Andy Mason

Weather for the week ahead

As is to be expected for this time of the year the weather is forecast to be somewhat mixed. The early part of the period will be dominated by westerly airflow in the south and east/north easterly winds in the north, swapping during the middle of the period to north and easterly winds in the south to southwest and westerly winds in the north, with some periods of heavy rain at times and light winds at others. 

Snow Buntings by Neil Calbrade

We should see the arrival of Whooper Swans on the northerly winds, along with Snow Bunting, and later in the period thrushes and finches will be able to move in force across the North Sea and we could see the first big arrival of Bramblings and Chaffinches along east coasts. Ring Ouzel will also come into its own during the latter part of the period. On the scarce and rare front, there have already been a small number of Pallas’s Warblers seen but more could be on offer, we are now well into Radde’s Warbler timing but an accessible Siberian Blue Robin would go down a treat. North American thrushes have been remarkably absent during what is probably the best American autumn in over a decade, surely there must be at least one Grey-cheeked Thrush lurking somewhere.

Paul Stancliffe and Scott Mayson