Vis migging at The Scrubs

Dawn at The Scrubs

Ahh....Summer has finally arrived. Okay, it's the end of September and a little weird but it sure is nice to feel the heat of the sun. I dragged myself out of bed to be on the patch at 6.30am. My arrival was greeted by a lone and lost looking Redwing that erratically headed west low over the rooftops. I was still getting out of the car when a Hobby at slightly higher altitude lilted across the sky westward before hurtling into a headlong dive after some unseen and no doubt unsuspecting prey item.

The mist was still fairly thick over the grassland by the time I had appeared on my patch proper. The sky and the sunrise was glorious making the raucous unstructured departure flights of hundreds of Rose-ringed Parakeets from their roost look almost romantic in the morning light.

Anyway, I soon settled down to a good hour of visible migration watching in the company of fellow Scrubber, Rob Ayers. Together we noticed several wagtails heading over including a certain Grey Wagtail with the remainder put down as 'alba's' (Pied/White Wagtails). A large female Peregrine was escorted from the premises by four parakeets and a crow, 12 Siskin and 20 Swallows were the main players overhead whilst at least 30 Meadow Pipits cavorted in the grassland with a similiar number of Goldfinches.

Nice. But time was ticking and the parking meter maids were stirring. The time had come to burst back into civilisation and leave my idyll. The good thing though is that it will happen all over again tomorrow morning hopefully with a different cast of birds.