Saturday 31 October 2015

Anglesey Halloween Thrush-fest!

We came out of the kids Halloween Disco at 8 pm and I pointed out to them the constant drawn-out tseeep-like call of the Redwings passing overhead. It's a common sound in October and November as birds pile into the UK and Ireland to escape the cold Northern winters. Tonight was quite unusual in that it's the last day of October and it's extremely mild and there's no wind. So presumably the birds are making the most of ideal weather conditions for an-incident free night of passage across North West Europe. However tonight the Redwing passage was constant and un-interrupted, with their "tseeep" - like call being heard every few seconds. I must confess that when I hear them normally I am always pleased to hear them and may stand there for a few minutes. However as it was more noticeably audible in the night sky I stayed out their for about 15 minutes and got the kids out who were also fascinated. But tonight amongst the Redwings I could also hear Fieldfares, Song Thrushes and Blackbirds amongst the Redwings, it was amazing, and the kids were also amazed at the constant calls of the different types of birds passing over-head, no-doubt tonight in their thousands. I've seen on the internet recently radar-maps of bird migration. I wonder if anyone has any contacts at RAF Valley who could confirm the degree of migration over Anglesey on Halloween via Radar, and did anyone else out there pick up on the scale of over-head migration tonight? It was a real treat!

1 comment:

  1. Brilliant Steve, It's set fine for tonight too so I'll have a listen out for them. Did you hear Skylarks amongst them? I have seen and heard them recently flying south over here in their 2s and 3s giving that short burst of contact call.

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