The Lincolnshire Bird Club

on August 13th I found a pair of Spotted Flys feeding in a dead tree in Laughton Forest; today one bird was still in the same tree (assuming that it was one of the same which seems most likely) in 2012 a survey of the whole forest found only one pair of Spotted Flys and in a different location to this pair; today I also came across a flock of 7 birds feeding along a forest ride with other warblers and tits -- this could I guess have been a late brood but there were no obvious juvs so do families migrate at least part of the way together after leaving the breeding grounds or could it just have been a random gathering of 7 birds in good habitat? the latter idea would seem a bit unlikely given the lack of birds in the area in summer and the fact that even coastal migrants were not that common in the recent drift.

I think that family parties do migrate - or at least locally disperse from their breeding site. When ringing in autumn I have caught two adults with juveniles all together, at sites where I don't think they've bred. Mind you I'm going back more years than I care to remember - I don't get Spotted Flycatchers very often these days!

Alan