Migration Spectacular at Hastings Country Park NR
6th November 2009, Friday
As I drove up to the Firehills I crossed paths with a couple of hundred Woodpigeons apparently coming straight off the sea at Fairlight Cove and cutting west along the back of the Ridge. However up on the cliffs the birds seemed to arrive low from the Weald then head directly southwards out over the sea, ramping up in a steep diagonal to gain height for the crossing.
The leading flocks have just left the coast and are gaining height.
It was quite busy when I started counting at 07.00, but at 07.15 the floodgates opened with thousands of pigeons passing in a long trail, hardly broken for half an hour.
Tracking each flock as it rose up, I could see previous groups as tiny pinpricks far across the Channel.
In the hour between 07.00 & 08.00, I counted 20,000 birds passing, but after 8, the intensity diminished sharply.
This migration is so spectacular that non-birding dog-walkers stop to ask me what’s going on and I’m surprised there aren’t crowds of people out to witness it in the way, for instance, they gather to watch storm waves breaking over Hastings sea-front.
There were plenty of Stock Doves mixed in with them, sometimes in distinguishable flocks of up to 50, but in general too closely mixed in to count seperately. I could also occasionally pick up flocks of finches chugging along westwards way up above the pigeons and other groups passed below me, just above the waves. The calls of those flying closer, declared them to be Chaffinches, Bramblings, Meadow Pipits, Goldfinches and Siskins. Starlings flew close enough to see and there were a few small groups of Fieldfares. Missing today were larks, wagtails and Redpolls, but 3 Bullfinches flying high E over the Quarry were interesting. Bullfinches are generally sedentary but small numbers do migrate and in some years more. Some large counts have been recently reported from Bedfordshire on www.trektellen.nl.
