Visible Bird Migration - Tuesday October 4th 2011.
Hutton Roof, Cumbria.
0700hrs - 1030hrs
Wind: W25mph and gusting to 30mph and swinging to NW.
Movement: S-SW
With such strong winds, the movement did not seem to get going at first, although in the far distant SE to where I was and to the rear of Kelker Well and the Rocky area where mountain climbers come on Hutton Roof, I could see the birds (mainly) Mipits piling out of the valleys below and then sort of ascending up the sides of Hutton Roof and over. So at 0800hrs (already missed the vital hour) I quickly traversed the path for several hundred yards until I could get a partial good vantage of what was happening, and they where at that point coming up and over my head in parties of between 20 and 30, most where about 22-25 and this seem to be going on the full breadth of the remainder of the East side of HR. I will certainly be going there for the next couple of days. Sadly when you move over, something has to lose out and in my case it will be the Chaffinch (and other finches). But I must check out whats going on with these Mipits.
When things slackened off at 0930hrs (like turning the tap off), I walked along the full stretch to the Mountain climbers area and that was more or less where the Mipit move finished off and the topography tapers down, but here they where still going through in trickles of parties up to 6. I seem to think that birds where not only coming down the Farleton side, but also across from Lupton and also possibly the other valley which lies further back (Sedbergh-Barbon- Areas to my NE), and all birds where heading in the direction of S or SW and looked like they were going towards Jean Roberts watch at Caton (they headed more or less towards the wind turbines), but may have just been slightly West to Caton and more to the Liddledale Area.
It will certainly be interesting what turns up (if anything) during the next few days. Never had Mipits in these sort of numbers before (at HR), usually to a max c700 at peak times.
Hi Bryan, Glad you had a good pipit day. Been stuck in house all morning with kids!
Did get out for 1/2hr at 8ish with dog but heard not a single 1 going over here. And as you know we are right on a flight route down this valley but there weren`t any over at that time.
Were your numbers good due to wind strength/direction changing there normal route?
Craig, it was a sort of change of route. With regards Mipits on HR, they are splayed from the North by Farleton Knott and come down both sides in the main. The stuff usually at my watch comes over me in a sort of strict N-S direction, these I see without problem, but numbers are not that good. But there is also some which come down the sides of Farleton and carry on going in a more NW to SE direction, these would after leaving us go across to Docker and then perhaps Thrushgill heading South. Yesterday this particular routing turned NE-S or SW basically I think because they would have been sheltering on the lee site of Farlton and then HR and then knowing they wanted to turn South, gradually came up the sides of HR and up and over.
So not the normal passage, but certainly one to watch in strongish Westerlies, but certainly not like today 35 to 50 gusting.
