Early September update

Early September has been dominated by south-westerly winds and rather settled, at times very warm weather. A hint of east wind only produced a couple of common migrants.A decent day at Long Nab produced highlights of 2 Sooty Shearwater, 9 Bar-tailed Godwit, a Whimbrel, 2 Knot, a juvenile Curlew Sandpiper and a Ruff, mostly over the sea, while moving inland 18 Swift. 4 Skylark, 1 Sand Martin, 13 Swallow, 80 House Martin, 3 Flava and 62 Meadow Pipit.
As well as light passage the fields, now freshly cut, were alive with birds, mainly Meadow Pipit but various other bits with them too, September is really a fantastic month.
At least 4 Yellow Wagtail were scattered throughout the fields and almost every bale had a Wheatear on. It soon became obvious that they were arriving in off with a final total of 11.
A check of Jackson’s Bay that afternoon, hoping for a Buff-breasted Sand only produced a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull, 28 Ringed Plover, 19 Dunlin, 2 Bar-tailed Godwit and 27 Sandwich Tern.

Wheatears at Long Nab

Yellow-legged Gull in Jackson's Bay

Unfortunately I missed the next day e to work, highlights were a couple of Cory’s Shearwater.

I did however get out on the 6^th, and with forecast south west wind I was expecting a decent southerly passage.

A birding year consists mainly of routine ‘days in the field’ always hoping for something but ultimately not, as a result they aren’t very long lived in the memory. Occasionally there are those good days, whether it be a decent bird or good volume of commoner species, the days that are truly great and live long in the memory are few and far between (unless you live at Spurn maybe!), possibly as few as half a dozen a year, depending on how much time you spend out of course. The 6^th was one of them, and maybe my third or fourth great day of the year and one that just goes to prove that it doesn’t need a rarity to provide those memorable days.

Arriving at Long Nab it was immediately apparent that hirundines and pipits were moving in large numbers, I took me 25 minutes to walk 70 meters to my chosen spot I would stand for the coming few hours.

Between 06.45 and 11.20 (which is when the passage had completely stopped) I finished with totals of 77 Sand Martin (the highest September count of Sand Martin for Scarborough), 2402 Swallow (the 3^rd highest count for Scarborough) and 1651 House Martin (the 2^nd highest count in Scarborough) and 1291 Meadow Pipit (always noteworthy when a four digit tally is reach for Meadow Pipits in Scarborough).

Add to those totals of a Swift, a Kestrel, 12 Skylark, 1 Whinchat, 3 Tree Sparrow, 3 Flava, 2 Alba, 1 Tree Pipit, 45 Linnet and 18 Goldfinch.

With most birds passing through within a 2 hour window it really made for a fantastic mornings birding, at times too much for one observer to handle!

House Martin through Long Nab

While further down the coast at Hunmanby Gap up to 8500 more Swallow (as well as slightly higher numbers of pretty much everything) were logged I assume many must have cut down the Vale of Pickering hitting the coast somewhere around the Blue Dolphin before cutting south straight towards the Gap.

I really would have struggled to keep up if all those Swallows had passed me at the Nab!

I was out again on the 8^th, mainly hoping for something that had drifted in during the small window of east wing over the 7^th.
Castle Hill appeared quiet, that was until I reached the ‘booted’ plantation, it was alive with birds! Unfortunately not the hoped for migrants, instead 4 Blue Tit and 2 Great Tit (a plantation tick!).
Whilst making sure there wasn’t a migrant lurking in the depths (there wasn’t) Chris informed me of a juvenile Roseate Tern heading south off Long Nab.
After 10 minutes I had picked up a small group of Common Terns and with them was the juvenile Roseate Tern (the first in Scarborough this year), albeit poor views as it headed away into the glare.

Blue Tit 'booted plantation'

Great Tit 'booted plantation'

I decided to do a little sea watching, covering it whilst Chris searched for migrants up at Long Nab.

I noted a few things, a Turnstone, 2 Sanderling and a Shoveler south but then picked up a small Gull feeding about 600 meters off shore with a scattered group of Black-headed Gulls and Kittiwakes.
I was immediately drawn to the all pale/white underwing and, only showing dark primary tips and thin black trailing edge to the secondaries.
It was smaller than the accompanying Black-headed Gulls, maybe by 15% and all over appeared more dainty, more agile and graceful.
Upperparts it showed a dark bar along the coverts with that thin dark trailing edge to the secondaries along with black tips to the primaries with what appeared to be quiet a large white wedge on the outer primaries, although it looked ‘mucky’ at range due to black shafts running up the outermost primaries.
The mantle was clean pale grey while the tail was white with a thin dark tail band.
Although distant the bill appeared small and dark with a rather neat dark spot behind the eye, Bonaparte’s Gull was firmly in my mind!

I watched the bird over the next 8 -10 minutes but unfortunately it, and the whole feeding flock began heading out and north eventually causing me to lose the bird.
Hours of searching later I still hadn’t relocated it in North Bay, unfortunately it didn’t join the Black-headed Gulls at Scalby Mills either and Chris drew a blank over in Jackson’s Bay.
A southbound juvenile Little Gull was very handy to see, and I was able to compare sizes with some Black-headed Gulls, the bird I was watching earlier was somewhere between the two species in size.
Hopefully the Gull will do the decent thing and come in to Scalby Mills sometime in the future.

Spending time at Scalby Mills did at least mean I picked up a few things, a couple of Sanderling feeding among the rock pools among the Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls, 2 juvenile Lesser Black-backed Gulls were also picked out.

Little Gull south past Scalby Mills

A very frustrating day all in all, but one off those experiences that will hopefully play its part somewhere in the future.