As so often happens these days, I'm playing catch up, with a summary of the last five or six weeks.
My last post was entitled holiday part 1, with the expectation of a follow up. For some reason, in the last few years, my autumn break kicks off with something really good, followed by nothing much and this year was the same. Obviously there were still issues with fuel supplies at the time and there wasn't a great deal turning up to justify travelling. In fact the general consensus seems to be that it was a pretty poor year for the east coast, with migrants in short supply. The now normally abundant Yellow Browed Warblers were very scarce for example.
Following the Long Toed Stint twitch, I had a car service booked, so it was a couple of days before I was able to get out. The 13th proved to be the highlight of the week. Indications were good on the Continent with masses of Thrushes building up on Monday and Tuesday and they duly arrived. Breakfast tweets were full of reports of large numbers of Redwings from first light, so I headed over to the Beane valley. Unlike Amwell for example, where thrush movements have been spectacular as they are funnelled along the Ash valley and then over the pits, there is nothing here to concentrate movements so arrivals are over a broad front.
I saw the first few birds east of Chells Manor, and over the mile south along the river I was encountering small parties regularly, with several flocks of 40-50 flying straight through. In total I counted around 245 over 40 minutes, which is likely to be a small percentage of the numbers locally-some south England migration spots were reporting tens of thousands. Unusually there weren't any Fieldfare at all (and I had to wait until early November before I found any), but there seemed to be rather more Blackbirds and Robins. No Mistle Thrush either, though I did encounter two later that week (they used to be seen regularly around Aston End but are now very scarce). Elsewhere, one of the sheep fields had a huge flock of Pied Wagtails with around 50 birds present for a couple of weeks.
There was a bit of a hiatus for a few weeks, with poor weather and one of the flu-like things keeping me out of action.
The 13th November was one of those days, but a bit of a stunner. I was getting ready for the Saturday shopping trip when I heard a high pitched call. Looking around I saw a few Starlings go over and carried on then the call came again from a neighbour's garden and several Ring Necked Parakeets landed in my Rowan, then more arrived until there were twelve. It was a rather surreal sight as it isn't a big tree and apart from the occasional crow, the biggest birds are normally Blackbirds. The Parakeets are still around, I hear them most days that I am at home and I've seen them here, and also Chells Manor and Camps Hill School, though never more than 6-7. Based on Alan Ford's publication this is the biggest flock in Stevenage, and though they have been seen infrequently over the last few years, I get the feeling that they are now here to stay.
Fairlands Valley has been pretty much business as usual over the autumn. Three Egyptian Geese turned up for a few weeks, the Kingfisher may be back for the winter but has only been reported once or twice, and there is a nice sized flock of Siskins at the moment. The Redwing influx meant that for a week or so around 50 birds remained around the old farm house, with several Brambling that I never saw. Later in November, I started to see our regular Caspian/Herring Gull X307, and highlights were seeing the Tawny Owl in the nest box on the 20th, and a female Mandarin and two Goldeneye on the 20th. The Fairlands year list is getting close to 100, which I understand is unusual if not unprecedented and we are all hoping that a few good birds turn up in December.
