Thursday October 15

Cloudy with a light north-easterly breeze. I made a late start due to acute laziness, and didn't get to the patch until 09.30. It wasn't long before I was chatting to Maggie, who was walking her dog. She quite reasonably asked me what I was hoping to see today. Although I was tempted to reel off a long list of potential rarities, reality kicked in and I settled for Redwings.

What do they look like and how many have you seen so far? They look a bit like Starlings, and I've seen two, came my answer. I felt she wasn't impressed. Within ten minutes I had seen a party of 40 heading north-west, but throughout the majority of the rest of the morning no more flew over.

That was all to change at around 11.45am. A group of nine, and then another 55. The birds kept on coming, and by 12.15pm, I had amassed a grand total of 361, all heading north-west, none calling, and none looking like stopping. I searched each flock for Fieldfares, but saw none, although one distant flock of 40 thrushes did look a bit too big to be Redwings, so I didn't count them as anything.

A party of 60 Redwings

So you have to remember that this is not just happening at Morton Bagot. Across the country similar flocks will have been doing just the same, as Scandinavia gradually sheds its entire population. The scale is eye-watering.

The rest of the morning was dominated by another northern species, but in this case they will just have come from northern Britain. Small numbers of Lesser Redpolls were feeding on willow herb seeds along the hedge at Netherstead, and I found a larger flock near the Pheasant pens, giving me a creditable total of 24.

Lesser Redpoll

Other passerines seen included 30 Skylarks, five Siskins, a Chiffchaff, and a pair of Stonechats.

The male Stonechat

Thank goodness for the perching birds, because the watery areas were absolutely desperate. The grand total of waterbirds was three Green Sandpipers, three Teal, two Snipe, 30 Mallard, a Greylag Goose, and a Kingfisher which saw me first and as a consequence was heard and not seen.