The passing of the Tree pipits

19 Saturday Aug 2023

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autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Tree pipit, Tree pipit migration

Tree pipits have been heading south in their ones and twos for a couple of weeks already but on Wednesday, with fine weather and a light easterly breeze, their flow increased noticeably. A local birder clocked over a hundred in the hour he watched that morning; another, whose patch is Kenfig NNR, reported a count of 53 during his morning visit; and I noticed similar reports from many locations on social media. Migration magic!

230819 tree pipit

Tree pipits

24 Wednesday Aug 2022

Posted by sconzani in autumn, birds

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Anthus trivialis, autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Tree pipit

In last week’s post about the start of the autumn bird migration, I mentioned that I’d blog about the individual species if I managed to get some better photos. Well, there have been a few obliging Tree pipits passing through, so today they get star billing.

The only time we see Tree pipits (Anthus trivialis) here in coastal south Wales is on passage, in the Spring heading to their breeding grounds in the Welsh Valleys and points further north (I see and hear them singing at Aberbargoed NNR when I go looking for Marsh fritillaries in May and June), and then again in the Autumn as they fly south to their over-wintering sites in Africa.

Tree and Meadow pipits are very similar and can be difficult to tell apart. As a rule of thumb, at this time of year, the Tree pipits move through first, with Meadow pipits following a few weeks later (and some Meadow pipits linger through the winter months). If you can get a good look at them (or reasonable photos), you will see that the breast markings on Tree pipits are finer, more thinly streaked than the bolder flecks of the Meadow pipits, whose markings also extend further down the belly and the flanks.

Post-breeding summer passage

18 Thursday Aug 2022

Posted by sconzani in autumn, birds

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autumn migration, bird migration, birding, birdwatching, Redstart, Spotted flycatcher, Tree pipit

Most birders label the movement of birds before and after summer, to and from their breeding locations, as spring and autumn migration, so I had to chuckle recently when someone on Twitter took exception to my post saying I’d seen my first Spotted flycatcher of the autumn. It seems that what I had actually seen was ‘a bird on post-breeding summer passage’ rather than on autumn migration. Whatever you prefer to label this movement, it has begun, and I’ve now seen a Redstart, several Spotted flycatchers, and a few Tree pipits heading south. As you can see from my images, the birds have all been distant so far but I’ll blog about the individual species if I manage to get better photos.

220818 autumn migration birds

Birding at St David’s Vale

26 Saturday May 2018

Posted by sconzani in birds, insects, nature

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birding, birdwatching, British birds, Broad-bodied Chaser, Cockchafer, Common heath moth, Glamorgan Bird Club, Meadow pipit, Skylark, Small heath butterfly, St David's Vale, Stonechat, Tree pipit, Whinchat, Willow warbler

I might also have called this blog post ‘One hundred and eighty!’. Let me explain …

180525 St Davids Vale (1)

Last Wednesday I joined fourteen other members of the Glamorgan Bird Club for a day’s birding in the stunning scenery of St David’s Vale, near Abergavenny. We walked part of an ancient hollow way …

180525 St Davids Vale (4) 180525 St Davids Vale (6)

Beneath mighty oaks in an equally ancient woodland carpeted with bluebells …

180525 St Davids Vale (2) 180525 St Davids Vale (3)

And then, as the sun broke through the low cloud that had earlier floated across the border from England, we climbed up on to the broad open moorland, with panoramic views all around and the impressive peak of Sugarloaf looming to our right.

180525 St Davids Vale (5)

Most of the birds mocked my photographic skills and no-so-long lens as they perched on distant tree tops and bushes but I was delighted to hear and then see my very first Wood warbler, and then, on the moorland, several beautiful Whinchats. And those two sightings brought my year list to – yes, you guessed it – one hundred and eighty!

Our keen amateur naturalists also spotted a Small heath butterfly and two Common heath moths (this is the male; the female landed on my trouser leg so another birder got that picture), and a Broad-bodied chaser dragonfly. And we were entertained by the bumbling flights of several Cockchafers (I’ll cover those in a future post.)

Small heath butterfly

Common heath moth

Broad-bodied chaser

Cockchafer

My bird list for the today was: Mistlethrush, Robin, Goldfinch, Blackbird, Great tit, Carrion crow, Meadow pipit, Willow warbler, Swallow, Woodpigeon, Blue tit, Blackcap, Skylark, Buzzard, Chaffinch, Garden warbler, Long-tailed tit, Wood warbler, Stonechat, Raven, Tree pipit, Linnet, Whinchat, Wren, Cuckoo, House sparrow, Pied wagtail, Dunnock, Magpie and Jackdaw. It was a perfectly wonderful day!