More early May action

It wasn’t such an early start on the fifth, leaving Scarborough at 07.00 we were on site and netting for 07.15. A couple of Wheatear greeted us on arrival there.

With little in the way of cloud cover from the word go and all nets looking rather obvious it was looking like our efforts to catch a few birds would have been for nothing.
Luckily they weren’t and encouragingly a net ride we had never operated before, that was almost completely visible, was the most productive with 4 Whitethroat and a Willow Warbler all being new plus a Chiffchaff, one I rang as a 3JP back in August 2013, so if it hadn’t hatched out in the plantation itself it hadn’t come far at all, perhaps the middle plantation or maybe Cloughton Wyke.
Today she was bulging and weighed in about a gram heavier than a Chiffy caught on the previous round, maybe later in the year we will catch her offspring – fingers crossed she is successful.
The rest of the catch was standard fare, a male Blackcap, a few Goldfinch and a Linnet as well as a Blackbird.
Vis-mig in between rounds proved slower than yesterday but there was still a trickle. Hirundines reached totals of 66 Swallow, 28 House Martin and 35 Sand Martin south, also moving south were 10 Swift, 10 Flava, 69 Linnet, 23 Goldfinch and a Siskin while a Tree Pipit and a Whimbrel flew north.
Highlights were 2 Marsh Harrier, firstly a male south at 09.20 and a female in off and south at 11.55 while we were checking Cromer Point pond for any waders.
The pond itself was quiet but 2 Dunlin were on the small flood just to the north.
At a little after midday it was time to call it a day, I had work to think about but with the winds due to switch to the southeast overnight we were hopeful of a good day on the sixth.

Linnet

The above mentioned Chiffchaff

The sixth began just like the fifth, except for a marginally earlier start.
By 06.45 the nets were open and the first few south bound Hirundines were logged.
Walking round the plantation it seemed as though there were very few, if any new migrants had arrived and after our second net round our suspicions were realised with only 2 birds caught!
Things were slow going to say the least! Still, with a light southeast blowing and cloud cover approaching we were as ever optimistic, at least there was a trickle of vis-mig to occupy our minds and keep us alert.
A couple more net rounds proved just as successful as the first two and thoughts soon turned to packing up and birding elsewhere.
We persisted a little longer and with the vis-mig still providing us with hope we had another short watch from the raised ground along the cliffs just to the south of the ringing plantation.
With Swallows only just breaking the 100 mark it wasn’t exactly going to be a memorable day but at least it was something.
How things can change!
A brief look to the north and I caught the arse end of a Harrier dropping behind the cliffs and out of sight.
It wasn’t long before it was up again and I had directed Chris on to the bird, it was a ringtail Harrier.
With Chris now watching through the Scope and ,e firing off a few shots it became clear that only four fingers were showing, we were watching a Monty’s/Pallid!
Very quickly thoughts turned to Pallid, it had a Boa, and from what Chris could make out it had a pale trailing edge to the hand!
Unfortunately it was on a mission, shooting north, often facing directly away and it soon past Cloughton and gained height where it disappeared over Roger Trod and continued its journey north.
The quick nature of the flyby meant I wasn’t able to choose the desired setting on the camera and with the bird almost always being against a grey sky/sea background it meant the quality of the shots weren’t great, would they be enough to clinch?
After gathering our thoughts we released news of a probable 2CY Pallid north in the hope someone was out and about somewhere to the north of us.
It was only then we heard the news of a possible Pallid that had passed through Wykeham South Lake about 25 minutes previous to our sighting at 09.10, it was seen by one of the photographers in our area and he had apparently got pictures.
Hopefully between my shots and his we would have enough.
To cut a long story short after getting my images on the computer back at home and eventually getting Terry’s shots from Wykeham we confirmed it PALLID HARRIER!
Relief, finally me and Chris could both relax and celebrate ours and Terry’s find.
A first for Scarborough and my 2^nd self-found Pallid after the Scarborough birders on tour came up trumps on Shetland in 2014.
I am however still to find a Monty’s!!
A little research from Chris later on that day revealed a straight line distance from Wykeham South Lake to Long Nab of 7.25 miles meaning the bird travelled at roughly 17 miles per
hour!
Its unprecedented that a bird was tracked through Scarborough, particularly on a weekday and even more so that we had no knowledge of the Wykeham sighting so we weren’t scanning and actively looking for it, Scarborough still remains very under-watched.

PALLID HARRIER

PALLID HARRIER

With promising conditions looking set to continue over the weekend and into next week here’s hoping for a few more goodies.

Check out Scarborough Birders sightings here page for some stunning Harrier shots taken at Wykeham.