Clear blue skies and bright sun are not the best recipe for visble migration cake at Marshside, and so it was this morning.
Most birds passing through would have been going over a zillion miles above, although the strong north easterly did force groups of Swifts down low - they were pouring through alongside smaller numbers of Swallows and House Martins.
The wind didn't stop the Whitethroats and Sedge Warbler from going crazy, chattering away around Marshside Road, and the male Garganey was still on the Junction Pool.
Marshside One had at least 80 Dunlins, with groups zipping in and out, and a few Ringed Plovers amongst the usual species.
Little Egrets made heavy weather of trying to fly into the wind.
Around the Sandplant at least six Wheatears, with a few alba wags, and a single feeding Whinchat.
Linnets twittering about too.
Despite this, it felt kinda quiet - presumably others are finding it the same, judging by the relative lack of comments on the blog recently.
A large group of male Shelducks were giving a female a hard time out on Marshside Two, but aside from that it was Avocets, Lapwings and Blackwits all the way.
Please let it rain soon.
Eyes to the skies everyone, eyes to the skies...
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On my way to work this morning a male House Sparrow landed on a front garden wall just feet away with a tiny dead chick in his beak and left it as he flew back up to the roof.
Something you don't see every day.
A league table of farmland birds across England has been revealed showing a stark north/south divide.
The GovernmentâÂÂs statistics on wild bird populations released this week have been broken down by English regions. The figures chart the increase and decline of English bird populations between 1994 and 2007.
Of all the species included in the Defra report, farmland birds have seen the steepest decline across England - the only two areas to see a rise are North East and the Yorkshire and Humber region. The South East region comes bottom of the farmland bird league table with a 27 per cent decline in population.
âÂÂThese figures seem to reflect the intensification of farming across England,â said Richard Gregory, head of Species Monitoring and Research at the RSPB. âÂÂBroadly speaking, the further north you go the less intensive is the farming and the mixture of arable and livestock farming changes.
âÂÂIn addition, there seems to be a clear signal of climate change in these trends. At a European scale, we have witnessed bird population trends correlating with climate projections, so we would expect the effects of climate change in the UK be felt more in the South. Although predation occurs, research shows it is not a major factor in farmland bird decline.âÂÂ
The figures show that across the English regions the species on the Farmland Bird Indicator list - which includes skylark, grey partridge and yellowhammer - have fallen by 13 per cent between 1994 and 2007. There was a seven per cent decrease between 2006 and 2007 making it the biggest one-year decline since 1998.
Dr Peter Robertson, the RSPBâÂÂs Conservation Manager for Northern England commented: âÂÂWe are pleased to acknowledge the hard work of many farmers in the North East, Yorkshire and Humberside whose efforts to help farmland wildlife seems to be paying off. However, there is still more to be done, as a number of the rarer farmland birds such as corn bunting, turtle dove and grey partridge are continuing to decline.âÂÂ
âÂÂWe have every faith that the farming industry and the governmentâÂÂs agri-environment schemes have the power and the resolve to halt bird declines and we all need to work together to make sure that happens.âÂÂ
Although farmland birds have seen the worst declines in population, woodland bird numbers have also fallen according to the report. Between 1994 and 2007 woodland bird species â which include the wood warbler, the willow tit and the lesser-spotted woodpecker - have fallen by six per cent across England.
The North West has seen the biggest increase in woodland birds, 42 per cent, while the South East has seen a drop of 16 per cent. Climate change may be implicated in these changes, which again have a north-south gradient, but other factors including changes in woodland age, structure and management may partly account for these differences too.
DefraâÂÂs report âÂÂWild bird population indicators for the English regions: 1994-2007â is available in PDF form by going to http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/wildlife/research/download/wdbrds200905.pdf