The Big Vis with Trektellen and Patchwork Challenge (1 Viewer)

[Hotspur]

Trektellen and Patchwork Challenge are running the Big Vis event this weekend promoting visible migration watching. It involves a minimum two hour count from dawn on either Saturday or Sunday and full details are here:

http://patchworkchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-big-vis-with-trektellen.html

If you want to take part have a read, go birding and fill in the form which will appear on the Patchwork Challenge site. All the records will be forwarded to birdtrack and hopefully we can open up Vis-migging to a new audience.

For more info on the weekend on twitter use the hashtag #BigVis and follow @patchbirding and @trektellen

 

[Nutcracker]

http://patchworkchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-big-vis-with-trektellen.html

Sunrise is 07:10 on Saturday and 07:11 on the Sunday

Where on earth did they get those figures from?? Tropical Africa?

Checked up, sunrise is 07.44 BST on Saturday, and 07.46 BST on Sunday, for central Britain (a few of minutes earlier in the southeast, a few minutes later in the northwest).

 

[Hotspur]

Good spot - and I will get that amended. I blame the person that gave me the times... But as I am at St Mary's at dawn in the morning I should have known better.

 

[Nutcracker]

Thanks!

 

[Nutcracker]

What does one count for it? If you're at St Mary's Island, I can bet that every half hour or so, you'll get two thousand Golden Plover fly over N, then S, then N, then S, and so on . . . but you obviously can't reasonably log 8,000 Golden Plover N and 8,000 Golden Plover S on the results . . .

Also, how do you tell 'real' migration from daily post-roost flying out to feed, e.g. starlings, gulls, crows, pigeons? Or do you include this too? If included, it'll give very inflated figures for migration!

 

[pppppvvvv]

If you go somewhere regularly Nutcracker, you soon get a good idea of the local commuters versus the proper stuff.
Another option is to visit later in the day and see which of the morning's birds are flying back home as it where.

Good fun, and you can record some surprises, from time to time, albeit flying over / calling. A sound recorder on max sensitivity, pointing skywards, is a good idea.

 

[Hotspur]

As the day is a bit of fun and an introduction into Vis-migging it is less critical that only migrants are picked. Main targets are birds obviously moving but the Mary's Goldies are pretty obviously not moving through even when up whereas a band of birds scudding through high is a different kettle of fish. Go with your gut instinct and record whatever birds you feel are moving. If there arent many land birds moving then home in on sea birds. If there are wildfowl moving then home in on that. All subjective - I went for seabirds this morning and was rewarded with three species of diver, 50+ Little Gulls, a Pom and 2 Goldeneye which was brilliant.

 

[Hotspur]

Details on how to take part and enter your data now on the Patchwork Challenge blog.

http://patchworkchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-big-vis-filling-in-form.html?m=1

 

[Nutcracker]

Gave it a go, though very little that I could confidently say was migrating rather than just local birds. Best bird was a Merlin (no proof that it was migrating either, but it's going down on the list!!).

A sound recorder on max sensitivity, pointing skywards, is a good idea.

Glad I don't have one, what with an idiot spending ¾ of an hour yelling at his mutts, about 20 other mutts (and their owners) barking all the time, the police helicopter on an operation nearby, and planes coming in to the airport . . . I'd have had to go to the hospital ear clinic if I did!

Details on how to take part and enter your data now on the Patchwork Challenge blog.
http://patchworkchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-big-vis-filling-in-form.html?m=1

You may have noticed the appearance of the Big Vis form on the right hand sidebar.

The right hand sidebar is empty in my browser, I see no entry form :-C

 

[Hotspur]

23 Whitefronts, GN Diver, Goldeneye, 2 Red-breasted Merganser offshore for me plus a Swallow south and a Kestrel in off at Barmston today.

 

[pppppvvvv]

Here is my total from this morning..

http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?taal=2&land=5&site=0&telpost=1416&datum=20141019

This watchpoint hasn't worked out as well as I'd hoped.. It is on the River Test which is a pretty good flyway for migrants. I was hoping for birds to be funnelled between the Forest / Hillside, and Romsey Town, but it has turned out that birds just go straight over Romsey! So I am frustrated by lots of small flocks of finches that remain unidentifiable in the distance. Hoping for a last push of Thrushes and Woodpigeons this Autumn, then I will rethink another place to visit I think.