Sunday Sightings.

I'll try again with a brief summary of sightings after the website crashed trying to load my last attempt. Bah. Really I should be packing as we're due to fly off in the morning after the weather improved enough for the van to leave the island today, so we'll hopefully be on our way  round the country visiting our families soon (and possibly taking in the odd good bird, football match and Indian takeaway on the way!).

The Bean Geese were mostly concentrated around wet area near the Houll crop strip today, although a few smaller groups were scattered elsewhere on the island. Today's count of 46 Beans was slightly down on yesterday's record, but still impressive. The other highlights of today included the Rough-legged Buzzard still present in the North where there was also a Common Buzzard, continuing a quite good year for raptors (especially with Merlin, Peregrine and at least three Sparrowhawks on the island today as well - not quite Falsterbo admittedly, but a nice selection).

There seemed to be more movement amongst the goose flocks today, so the day totals were perhaps slight underestimates as we tended to err on the side of caution. There was still a  slight increase in White-fronts though, with 74 logged, whilst Greylag and Pink-feet numbers remained similar to yesterday.

Several small groups of Lapwings have arrived in recent days, whilst other new birds today included adult Little Gull in South Harbour, Mistle Thrush at Quoy and Black Redstart and Chiffchaff (only seen briefly, but a pale looking bird) at the Obs.

If I see anything really good in the UK I'll maybe let you know, but otherwise this will probably be my last blog post for a little while. We'll be returning to the Obs on 7th December (weather permitting as always!), so in the meantime please don't think we're ignoring any messages, we'll get back to you as soon as possible when we return!