Well, I had been hoping to update this blog quite frequently this autumn with tales of rares and mega falls on the Farnes, however to be perfectly blunt, the autumn thus far has been absolute shit, no two ways about it.
Like the rest of the country, we've been dominated by howling westerlies and clear skies, which for an east-coast site like us is a total waste of time.
At long last, wednesday night and thursday morning gave us a brief spell of easterlies, as the wind direction backed a full 300 odd degrees to the nor-westerlies we're stuck in now. Yesterday (thursday) was quite an exciting day, with The Farnes beating its record day counts for Teal and Swallow, with 894 and 248 north respectively, along with the first Ruff and Goosander of the year. However it failed to produce any of the much anticipated rares, just a few commoner land migrants. And then the Nor-westerly picked up to Severe Gale Force 9 and driving rain all night and all this morning, effectively the end of any rare hopes.
Still, us wardens on the mighty Brownsman don't give up that easily and a most un-pleasant walk in horiffic weather this morning was rewarded with brief looks at a nice Icterine Warbler trying to shelter in the sparse vegetation by our pond.
Luckily the weather cleared up this afternoon and we were able to get excellent views of this eastern scarcity feeding in typical Farnes fashion on open rocks and then in our artifical 'stick' (a bundle of driftwood nailed together to look like a tree!'
Like the rest of the country, we've been dominated by howling westerlies and clear skies, which for an east-coast site like us is a total waste of time.
At long last, wednesday night and thursday morning gave us a brief spell of easterlies, as the wind direction backed a full 300 odd degrees to the nor-westerlies we're stuck in now. Yesterday (thursday) was quite an exciting day, with The Farnes beating its record day counts for Teal and Swallow, with 894 and 248 north respectively, along with the first Ruff and Goosander of the year. However it failed to produce any of the much anticipated rares, just a few commoner land migrants. And then the Nor-westerly picked up to Severe Gale Force 9 and driving rain all night and all this morning, effectively the end of any rare hopes.
Still, us wardens on the mighty Brownsman don't give up that easily and a most un-pleasant walk in horiffic weather this morning was rewarded with brief looks at a nice Icterine Warbler trying to shelter in the sparse vegetation by our pond.
Luckily the weather cleared up this afternoon and we were able to get excellent views of this eastern scarcity feeding in typical Farnes fashion on open rocks and then in our artifical 'stick' (a bundle of driftwood nailed together to look like a tree!'
I've only got 2 weeks left on the Farnes before moving off to pastures new (watch this space!!!), so i'm desperately hoping for some easterly orientated weather conditions to bring in a few more goodies before I leave, fingers crossed eh.
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