Sunday 2nd September.

So here we are in September already: August seems to have flown by with nothing out of the ordinary to report though we certainly have had a good selection of waders. Birds of note since my last update have included: the 7 BLACK-TAILED GODWITS, 2 RUFF and 1 GREENSHANK, good numbers of RINGED PLOVER and increasing DUNLIN counts and good numbers of COMMON SANDPIPERS. However, it was noticeable that towards the end of the weak the first autumn nip was in the air and certainly the birds felt it as a lot of them left. By Sunday morning all that remained were 2 black-tailed godwits, 13 ringed plover and 5 dunlin. A further sign of the advancing Autumn is the fact that Golden plover numbers have been increasing with 8 birds present by Sunday. Other birds of note have been a few YELLOW WAGTAILS, a single WHEATEAR on the 28th (Dave Lowe) and a juv/1w MEDITERRANEAN GULL on the same date (Jarrod Hadfield).

Readers may remember that one of the Black-tailed Godwits was ringed. Both Roger Wyatt and Jarrod Hadfield reported it (I did too when I first found it though I think that I mis-identified one of the colours as no-one got back to me). Jarrod wrote a nice summary of it's movements:

It is of icelandic race, and has been recorded 43 times since been ringed In France. Below is a potted history:

Wintered in France 2008-2009
Autumn in France 2009
Wintered in France & later in Holland 2010-2011
Wintered in Spain & later in Holland 2011-2012

Seen on Autumn passage in UK:

July 2010 Lincolnshire
July 2011 East Yorkshire
July 2012 Oxford

The bird in question showing off some of his rings (c) Roger Wyatt