Migweek 2024

A return of FBO’s popular 9 day event celebrating all things migration. The ringing team aim to run public demonstrations on all 9 days at our South landing site, with additional demonstrations being held at RSPB Bempton. If we have enough ringers we also run sessions at other sites across the headland to try and maximise our numbers of migrants caught. We are of course beholden by the weather, hopeful of easterlies to bring us migrating birds.

This year the weather wasn’t really our friend, with the final 2 days being cancelled due to rain and wind.

A total of 706 new birds were ringed and 108 re-traps caught.

As always a huge thank you to all the ringers for their time and effort over the 9 days and to all the lovely visitors who keep us going with their enthusiasm and kind words.

Saturday 12/10/24

The demonstration at South landing was cancelled due the weather however the forecasted rain didn’t really materialise with just a few showers first thing, so our team decided to give it a go and see if we could catch any migrants, its was very quiet with only 18 birds caught (9 of which were re-traps) including 2 Goldcrest and a Song Thrush.

The team at RSPB Bempton ran their public demonstration and showed the eager public a lovely selection of migrants including 5 redwings, 1 Brambling, 1 Blackcap and 2 Goldcrest.

Sunday 13/10/24

The South landing team fared better today catching 50 new birds and 11 re-traps, made up a mix of resident birds and migrants. Visitors enjoyed our resident Tree Sparrows, given some people live in counties where this delightful bird is now extinct. Also caught were 4 Yellowhammer and a Reed Bunting, these declining species are being helped at Flamborough with feeding stations and our lighthouse grasslands bird crop.

Our Thornwick site caught 17 new birds and 7 re-traps with the star bird being a Cetti’s Warbler, this wetland specialist does not yet breed at Flamborough but is becoming more frequent.

Garden sites at Flamborough and Bempton caught 39 new birds and 3 re-traps including 3 Redwing, 3 Blackbird and 10 Starling.

Monday 14/10/24

The ringing demonstration at South landing yielded 45 new birds and 12 re-traps including 13 Yellowhammers, 6 Goldcrest, 3 Redwing, 1 Grey Wagtail and surprisingly a Magpie, we don’t often catch Magpies as they are usually able to wriggle out of our nets.

Thornwick was exceptionally quiet with the ringers only catching 2 new birds and 7 re-traps.

On South landing beach our ringers caught 6 new rock pipit and re-trapped a Robin.

At RSPB Bempton the team caught 15 new birds and re-trapped 2.

Tuesday 15/10/24

A very quiet morning at South landing was rewarded on the very last round with a stunning first year Great Grey Shrike, an increasingly rare bird at Flamborough this was a wonderful treat for our ringers and visitors alike. The last time a Great Grey Shrike was caught and ringed at Flamborough was 2002. Earlier birds of interest included 2 beautiful Brambling and 13 Redwing.

The team at Thornwick had a fantastic session with a big increase in Redwing numbers,

of the 99 new birds caught and ringed, 80 were Redwing alongside 2 more Brambling and a Siskin.

A garden site in the village also caught 43 new Redwing and another 2 Brambling in their catch of 52 new and 3 re-traps.

On South landing beach 2 Rock Pipit were caught, 1 being a re-trapped bird that was ringed during migweek 2023!

The team at RSPB Bempton also had a fabulous morning with a big increase in their number too, catching 104 new birds and 5 re-traps. 3 yellow-browed Warblers were the first of migweek alongside 81 Redwing.

Wednesday 16/10/24

A slightly poor forecast didn’t materialise but the slightly breezy conditions brought us a small flurry of winter Thrushes

At South landing 42 new birds were ringed and 10 re-traps caught, with the visitors enjoying seeing 12 Redwing, 9 Song Thrush and 6 Blackbird.

Again Thornwick triumphed with another 56 birds being ringed alongside 2 re-traps. This included 46 Redwing and 8 Song thrush,

Flamborough garden sites added 33 new birds and 1 re-trap to the weeks totals so far, including another 17 Redwing and a delightful 10 Long-tailed Tits

Thursday 17/10/24

A much quieter day at Flamborough with 37 new birds ringed at the demonstration and 6 re-traps caught.

At Thornwick another 21 new birds ringed and 1 re-trap, of which 9 were Redwing and 4 Song Thrush.

Star bird today most definitely went to the team at RSPB Bempton who delighted the crowds at their public demonstration with a Red-flanked Bluetail ( which stayed around the car park scrub and dell until the 29th October). They also caught another Yellow-browed Warbler and 2 more Brambling.

Friday 18/10/24

What was to be our last public demonstration of the week at South landing saw 21 new birds ringed and 11 re-traps.

A nice mixture of species were enjoyed by our assembled visitors including 2 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Grey Wagtail, 1 Chiffchaff and a Blackcap.

Sadly our weekend demonstrations at Flamborough and RSPB Bempton had to be cancelled due to bad weather.