Early migrants

It's March and that means summer migrants! Well, it doesn't really, does it. It might mean a few hardy early migrants making landfall, perhaps a fall or two at the months end, but there will be plenty of days when the winter will still rule, it will feel like December and the Sand Martin that enchanted us in mid-March will regret the day that it crossed the channel so early.

But regardless of all that pragmatism, summer migrants will arrive soon enough, so in celebration of these eagerly anticipated events I've raided my notebooks to bring you my earliest ever dates for the commoner (and some scarcer) summer migrants. Being a largely inland and weekend birder has meant that some of these dates are not all that impressive. If you live by the coast, and get out regularly, you will beat this lot into a cocked hat.

Garganey 27 March 1982 (Dungeness) - also recorded wintering
Montagu's Harrier 19 May 2014 (Dungeness)
Osprey 28 April 1996 (Stodmarsh) - also recorded wintering
Quail 13 May 1995 (Sandwich Bay)
Stone Curlew 16 April 1979 (Dungeness)
Little Ringed Plover 15 March 2008 (Holmethorpe SP)
Kentish Plover 1 April 1982 (Cliffe)
Dotterel 4 May 2012 (Canons Farm)
Whimbrel and Common Sandpiper dates confused by several wintering birds
Sandwich Tern 13 March 1993 (Dungeness)
Roseate Tern 12 May 1982 (Dungeness)
Common Tern 1 April 1978 (Dungeness)
Arctic Tern 18 April 1979 (Dungeness)
Little Tern 10 April 1982 (Dungeness)
Black Tern 22 April 1984 (Dungeness)
Turtle Dove 24 April 1983 (Appledore)
Cuckoo 13 April 2014 Leith Hill
Nightjar 18 May 1995 (Hempstead Forest)
Swift 22 April 2007 (Holmethorpe SP)
Sand Martin 12 March 1978 (Beddington SF)
Swallow 25 March 2005 (Holmethorpe SP)
House Martin 3 April 2010 (Holmethorpe SP)
Tree Pipit 12 April 1980 (Dungeness)
Yellow Wagtail 27 March 1980 (Dungeness) - also recorded wintering
Nightingale 12 April 1981 (Dungeness)
Common Redstart 11 April 1980 (Dungeness)
Whinchat 12 April 1981 (Dungeness)
Wheatear 11 March 1978 (Pagham Harbour)
Ring Ouzel 29 March 1998 (Bockhill) - also recorded wintering
Savi's Warbler 15 April 1977 (Stodmarsh)
Grasshopper Warbler 11 April 1981 (Westhampnett)
Sedge Warbler 5 April 1981 (Radipole)
Reed Warbler 13 April 2002 (Radipole)
Lesser Whitethroat 15 April 2007 (Holmethorpe SP)
Common Whitethroat 7 April 1995 (Dungeness)
Garden Warbler 24 April 2000 (Holmethorpe SP)
Wood Warbler 27 April 1980 (Headley Heath)
Willow Warbler 25 March 2000 (Holmethorpe SP)
Spotted Flycatcher 6 May 1983 (Cheam)
Pied Flycatcher 16 April 1983 (Pagham Harbour)
Golden Oriole 30 April 1988 (Dungeness)
Red-backed Shrike 15 May 1988 (Dungeness)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more