Mossley on Saturday morning: steady stream of Redwings and Fieldfares moving down the Tame Valley. At least 140 RE and 40 FF, usually in small flocks of 10 to 20, in the space of half an hour.
Yesterday (18th Oct) was an amazing morning of bird movement, i have never seen so many birds on the move locally and there was simply too much in the air at once to count, but over Elton between 7.45am-10am were approx-
Redwings - 2000+ (with 500+ still in fields around Withins at 10am) Fieldfare - at least 600 mostly hanging around in the fields. Mistle Thrush - 20 or so west.
40 - 50 Fieldfares near to Crime Lake failsworth @ 10.30 am this morning. Last night whilst walking to the local pub in Ashton could continualy hear Redwings flying over, so to see a good flock of Thrushes this morning was expected.
Was a bit busy watching No1 sons football match, but at least 70 Fieldfares went over his football pitch from the direction of GM a couple of hundred yards away.
I also saw several other thrush flocks but couldnt say what or how many. Looked like a nice bit of vis mig going on though.
__________________
No one on their death bed ever said they wished they'd spent more time at work. http://bitsnbirds.blogspot.co.uk
Big movement here also watch from 6.55 (when still dark) 11.30am Redwing contact calls heard on several occasions in darkness then from about 7.25 the floodgates opened, Fieldfare started moving from 7.50.
Redwing 2583 SW W NW Fieldfare 1351 NW Song Thrush 2 SW
Agree with Ian McK's comments that passage was very much an early morning activity and at Piethorne the flocks (max size only c40) were at times at almost ground level as they moved through. In fact at times they were that low they were quite hard to pick up!! Passage appeared to have ceased by around 9.45 and I am sure we only caught the very "tail-end" of it at Piethorne. Graham had earlier that morning been at Kingsway Business Park (which is due west of Piethorne) and had noted a considerable passage (100's) of birds (but at higher altitude) of winter thrushes - mainly Fieldfares. We were discussing this mornings movement and concluded that in general the Fieldfares seemed to have passed through ahead of the Redwings.
An amazing morning for thrushes through here's my spoils from an excellent vanatge point near the Astley Peat Pools as they passed through a narrow group of fields all heading west and mainly quite low to the ground.
08:15-10:30am (one wonders how many I missed not getting there until 08:15?)
Redwing- 3525 in 24 flocks, the largestof 600. Fieldfare- 537 in 19 flocks, the largest of 200. Mistle Thrushes- 70
