Weather

Daytime low of 12C, high of 20C, WSW 6mph to 17mph by late afternoon, dry, cloudy.

I started the day at ARC and wandered along the track to the Pines where a flock of Long-tailed Tits had been joined by 45 Chiffchaffs, two  Spotted Flycatchers, three Goldcrests, singles of Garden Warbler, Lesser Whitethroat and Dartford Warbler. A Great Spotted Woodpecker was also recorded.

Track leading to the Pines and Affinity Water Works

Spotted Flycatcher

I then wandered over to the Affinity Water Works and had three Wheatears and two Whinchats. Earlier in the morning a message came through that hirundines where migrating in numbers at the Point and it was evident that they were moving in large numbers across the peninsula as I was seeing flocks of Swallows, Sand Martins and House Martins heading past the Water Tower in a south-west direction. I cannot resist watching visible migration and taking counts of the migrating birds. I ended up at the picnic table outside of Hanson Hide and counted 833 Swallows, 233 Sand Martins and 127 House Martins and a Swift in one hour heading west.

Over to the Visitor Centre and two Black Terns were still on Burrowes Pit and the hirundine passage was even more impressive here, so another count of 2,530 hirundines moving south west. Goodness knows how many had passed over the peninsula during the day, a very large number!