October 25th

Most migration happens at night and out of sight. One day things aren’t here and the next day they are. But today it was obvious. At dawn I had a brambling going over the garden making its grumpy croaking call. And then it was a steady stream of flocks of siskin, linnets, meadow pipits and skylarks, with a few redwings, redpolls and blackbirds mixed in. They come in from the sea at Fife Ness and then continue along the coast, so pass Crail heading towards Anstruther. It’s not quite Gibraltar or Istanbul, but if you sit up on the top of the cliff at West Braes it’s our own migratory watch point as the flocks come past nearly at eye level. The joker in the pack was a flock of about 30 tree sparrows. Or 90 of them if the same flock didn’t come past three times. The tree sparrows are still dashing up and down the coast looking for somewhere to spend the winter as they have been doing since August. There are some signs that they are settling down: there were five on my garden feeder yesterday, hopefully back again for the winter. They have been absent since fledging chicks in June after breeding in one my bird boxes for the first time.

Bottom right…a blackbird coming in to Fife Ness after crossing the north sea the night before