Gale warnings.

A very windy couple of days has seen disruption to the transport on and off the island and not much happening in the way of new birds. Although we’ve not done Log yet today (so there may yet be a few surprises!), it seems that arrivals have been pretty limited, or the birds are keeping their heads down in the gale force westerlies. There’s a suggestion that the winds may ease for a while in the morning, so hopefully any hidden goodies may be discovered tomorrow!

The highlight from SE census was a Hawfinch under the feeders at Haa, with a juvenile Yellow Wagtail nearby on the beach. The Hawfinch was ringed, so is presumably the bird caught at the Obs a couple of days ago. Interestingly, there were Hawfinch sightings yesterday at the Obs, Haa and Springfield, which probably would have gone in the Log as at least two different birds except for the fact they were all ringed, so were presumably all the same bird wandering around.

On the subject of ringing, I never did get round to mentioning the results of the colour-ringed Rosefinch (see blog post on 21st Sep). It turned out to have been ringed as a youngster at Ringenäs, outside the town of Halmstad, on the west-coast of Sweden on the 25th August. Although there is a breeding population of Rosefinches here, this could have been a juvenile heading west through the area from further afield. It is certainly a classic example of a bird heading in totally the opposite direction to where it should have been going at this time of year. Thanks to Kåre Ström for the information.

Well, time to do Log, so more updates tomorrow if there’s anything to report.

A few wildfowl are on the move, including small numbers of Barnacle Geese with larger skeins of Greylags and Pink-feet seen on and over the island. One of the Greylags seen today was neck-collared, so we're waiting to here details of that bird.