They are certainly an incentive to get out and just watch the skies and listen every day whilst the weather is calm and dry because there are probably more in the area than are being detected. What's so special about Horwich? Is it just that they are so visible in the wide open spaces compared with wooded areas? As someone says below, they must be eating something!
Regarding Horwich and other moorland viz mig watch points, if I am correct here, many of the birds moving will fly around the moors rather than waste valuable energy climbing high to go straight over the top.
This wont necessarily apply to the high flyers like Pink footed Goose who will just go over the top anyway. The lower flyers will presumably, if moving north/south, come down the valley past Belmont Reservoir and in between the two slabs of moorland of Horwich and Darwen. One of the Horwich viz mig spots at the end of Scout Road would take advantage of this and also catch birds moving generally west/east, or vice versa, being well situated at some elevation on the southern edge of the moorland.
I have discussed this reasoning before but am still assuming to a certain degree. They say assumption is the mother of all **** ups, so perhaps some of the Horwich lads could confirm?!
Having watched Hawfinch on St Agnes recently , we were all surprised to note they were eating the berries of COPROSMA shrub ,as was the Cedar Waxwing and the Grosbeak, so I think checking and feeding birds in any berry tree would also pay off.
Ive been fascinated by the Hawfinch influx and following the sightings at Elton and on Horwich Moors almost daily. I see no reason why birds wouldnt be sighted passing over Holcomb as well, (though this is perhaps due to a present lack of early morning coverage there?)
These enigmatic birds are among my favourite passerines, and Id love to see one in Manchester. I wonder if they will settle in to winter down there, - which would indeed be icing on the cake.
It would possibly pay off if locations like Haig Country Park, Etherow, and Worsley Woods (to name just a few good prospective sites) were monitored over coming months?
From my own experience here on my local patch in Durham, I have in the past enjoyed a degree of success in locating them, (always not long after dawn) early on calm sunny mornings, in mid/late winter, when they seem to like to perch up high on leafless Ash/Beech trees as if to enjoy the first warmth of the sun. They also seem to enjoy the security of keeping company with Redwing flocks and with them descend onto nearby open pastures on feeding forays from time to time. Once during a local day count I was squeaking to see what might pop out of cover from a pine wood, when to my great surprise a Hawfinch popped out, glared down at me disapprovingly and promptly vanished again.
Scanning rapidly across distant bare treetops in winter has paid off surprisingly well over a 20 year span here in the Wolsingham area, and I do feel that the species is generally under recorded in U.K, especially in summer, when thick leaf cover makes this very quiet bird virtually impossible to locate without prior local knowledge;- indeed some years ago the local postman Jack Parvin, photographed Hawfinch at the nest within 400 yards of where I live, though I have never been fortunate enough to record one here in summer, - mid March being my latest date.
Regards,
Mike P.
-- Edited by Mike Passant on Wednesday 1st of November 2017 02:04:24 PM
-- Edited by Mike Passant on Wednesday 1st of November 2017 02:05:01 PM
Haigh is somewhere I had been thinking would be worth checking out. I don't know if Hawfinches will eat Beech mast - I know they prefer 'large' seeds - but Beech is one of the most predominate 'large seed' species in Haigh. So, assuming they would eat it, Haigh would seem a good shout.
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Ive been fascinated by the Hawfinch influx and following the sightings at Elton and on Horwich Moors almost daily. I see no reason why birds wouldnt be sighted passing over Holcomb as well, (though this is perhaps due to a present lack of early morning coverage there?)
These enigmatic birds are among my favourite passerines, and Id love to see one in Manchester. I wonder if they will settle in to winter down there, - which would indeed be icing on the cake.
It would possibly pay off if locations like Haig Country Park, Etherow, and Worsley Woods (to name just a few good prospective sites) were monitored over coming months?
From my own experience here on my local patch in Durham, I have in the past enjoyed a degree of success in locating them, (always not long after dawn) early on calm sunny mornings, in mid/late winter, when they seem to like to perch up high on leafless Ash/Beech trees as if to enjoy the first warmth of the sun. They also seem to enjoy the security of keeping company with Redwing flocks and with them descend onto nearby open pastures on feeding forays from time to time. Once during a local day count I was squeaking to see what might pop out of cover from a pine wood, when to my great surprise a Hawfinch popped out, glared down at me disapprovingly and promptly vanished again.
Scanning rapidly across distant bare treetops in winter has paid off surprisingly well over a 20 year span here in the Wolsingham area, and I do feel that the species is generally under recorded in U.K, especially in summer, when thick leaf cover makes this very quiet bird virtually impossible to locate without prior local knowledge;- indeed some years ago the local postman Jack Parvin, photographed Hawfinch at the nest within 400 yards of where I live, though I have never been fortunate enough to record one here in summer, - mid March being my latest date.
Regards,
Mike P.
-- Edited by Mike Passant on Wednesday 1st of November 2017 02:04:24 PM
-- Edited by Mike Passant on Wednesday 1st of November 2017 02:05:01 PM
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Challenges are inevitable, but failure is optional.
They are certainly an incentive to get out and just watch the skies and listen every day whilst the weather is calm and dry because there are probably more in the area than are being detected. What's so special about Horwich? Is it just that they are so visible in the wide open spaces compared with wooded areas? As someone says below, they must be eating something!
I think massive praise should go out to the mad bolton vis mig team, Andy ,Warfy and Phil who have put the Horwich moors on the Vis Mig map, and who's hard work alerted us to the Hawfinch invasion.
Now the lowlanders just need to find out where the dam beasts are feeding and roosting .
I think that should be eruption, anyway it seems some sources are saying that birds started arriving just after storm ophelia and the sand storm or is this just a coincidence?
Amazing to see 18 hawfinch fly over Horwich moors today, I wonder what is causing this recent influx into the UK, certainly never been a better time to try and see this species in the county.
