West high down Wryneck and pied fc

Productive morning along WHD's north fence line in gorgeous weather. Highlights: 1 wryneck and 1 pied fly. Many warblers to sift through. And tripits over.
Willow warbler 22; tree pipits 17; yellow wagtail 1; alba wagtail 1 (first autumn one for me). Blackcap 2.

pied fly and willow warbler

wryneck - showed reasonably well for a wryneck, though unfortunately into the sunlight, and it did disappear in a more typically wryneck fashion.

tree pipits - briefly landing

Looking north from west high down

Short vid of wryneck

Afternoon: stopped at Brading and soon picked up an osprey over the marsh. Dodgy record shot and it kept its distance. Also one juv hobby hawking.

osprey record shot

migrant hawker - probably what the hobby had its eye on

Shanklin down etc

Despite a good hunt around I was rewarded with nothing new really. A larger number of tree pipits early on, but in the murky conditions, they may well have been the same birds hanging around unable to move on. The sun did break eventually so a pleasant walk. Hirundines were trickling through in largish numbers....

Very short vid of a tree pipit over Nansen Hill - heard in the first second and requires volume.

One of a handful of wheatear about St.Bonifice

spot fc shanklin down

small copper - not so many about lately

shanklin down

Last day off before work starts again (groan), and was tempted just to lie in bed all morning, but during autumn migration?! so headed for Shanklin early doors. Gave it a cursory bash: gorgeous weather-wise, a familiar call graced me not long into the walk, that of a tree pipit going over with another one heard later on. Not much change up top really, only in the numbers, with many spot fc and redstarts about now, and other birders reported at least one pied fly. One garden warbler revealed itself briefly.

Going back to last week there was a phyllosc calling on Shanklin down that grabbed my attention, as I thought it sounded almost sibe-like; obviously not very likely given the time of year etc, but as I've videoed it I thought I'd upload it.

Scotland holiday break

Visited Scotland August 19th - August 22nd
My brother took me to his local patch Ferryhills near the Forth bridge, which has been found to be an all rounder in terms of the varying migrants that pass over or nearby. On the Friday when I arrived it was raining and interestingly the winds were coming from the east, a combination that usually results in a fall of migrants along the east coast. So we headed to Ferryhills early Sat morning.

Sat 20th Aug:
As soon as we arrived it seemed busy in and around the bushes along the track leading up to the watch point. We soon spotted a spotted flycatcher - a species down on the IOW that's almost expected to be seen at this time of year but not so in this area - a patch tick and indicative of the conditions. We then planned to scrutinise the area more on the way back and continued on to the high ground to catch the vis mig.
It was fairly quiet in terms of vis mig. What has been really notable for my brother has been the passage of tree pipits this autumn with record numbers passing over. At least ten did pass over us but they are more plentiful with westerly winds.
Things got really interesting as we were making our way back to the car. We picked up the spotted flycatcher again but then found two more with it. A redstart seemingly out of nowhere bombed low over the undulating ground away from us and disappeared into a neighboring garden. A garden warbler suddenly appeared whilst scanning the garden bushes. Plus with the several active phyloscs we both had to agree that it really felt like anything was possible and could emerge from the trees and bushes. At some point we had to call it a day though. Definitely a memorable one.

A view from the lodge we were staying at - Loch Leven

 Ferryhills - my bro's patch near the Forth - record tree pipit passage and a potential migrant trap? with spot fc, redstart and garden warbler now added as patch ticks. With its height and surrounding scrub it kind of reminded me of west high down but on a smaller scale. 

Said tree pipits - some alighted the wires; most 'buzzed' over. 

Shanklin down

Last effort before heading to Scotland for a break. Fairly murky start that became brighter. Highlight a tree pipit flying over. A few expected grounded migrants to be seen: redstarts and spotted flys and chiffs/willow warblers (one of the latter produced a subsong).
A precursor to the full-on autumn migration in the coming weeks.

Just a nice shot

mix

Two tree pipits over Shanklin down this morning but precious else. Lovely day though...

juv pied wagtail

juv common buzzard

panoramic view Shanklin down

red arrows made a heart

Shanklin down/autumn migration: spotted fcs

AM: mostly quiet, nothing much moving save hirundines

x2

lbb gull?

Garganey - Brading