Migrants are coming thick and fast through Orsay right now. Floyover migrants logged from my flat include flyover Skylarks (Alouette des champs), Meadow Pipit (Pipit farlouse), Redwings (Grive mauvis) and bizarrely, a female Pheasant (Faisan de Colchide)! I took a long walk up on the plateau, logging masses of migrant passerines, the best of which was a flock of 12 Woodlarks (Alouette lulu).
While the sheer number of birds moving here has been impressive, variety has been low. By contrast, my old haunts in Yolo County, California have been producing the goods - 2 American Tree Sparrows (constituting the first and second county records) and an American Golden Plover in the Yolo Wildlife Area were astonishing enough, but paled into insignificance compared to a find by John Sterling and Scott Terrill along Putah Creek - mainland North America's first Taiga Flycatcher!!! John's terrific, and diagnostic, photos of the bird can be seen here. One of the lucky few that saw the bird yesterday spotted a Greater Roadrunner crossing Hwy 128 - that would have been 4 county ticks in one day for me :-(
On the bright side, I'm heading off to Ouessant tomorrow, France's ornithological equivalent of the Scillies or Farralones. Some moderately interesting stuff has been seen there recently (Pallid Harrier, Lesser Grey Shrike), and recent arrivals of American passerines on the Azores are promising. It doesn't look like I'll be adding Pink-footed Goose to my French list just yet though - the long-staying pair on Ouessant were recently shot! Should be an interesting few days...
Posted by rjhall at October 27, 2006 11:24 AM