The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Today was the first International co-ordinated Icelandic grey goose count of the autumn;

On the Humber there had been up to 8000 Pink-feet at Read's island with 1600 - 2000 at Whitton in recent weeks but there seemed to have been some southerly departures in recent days;
today a total of 1740 birds was counted at Whitton but the birds at Read's Island were rather late departing this morning and I could have saved being there at 07:00 as most left the roost between 08:00 and 09:30 -- in contrast to some years they were very co-operative this morning leaving in smallish flocks and not going off in different directions at the same time! -- My total clicked count was 13,160 birds beating the previous highest Read's count by a considerable margin; combined with the Whitton total a Humber total of 14,900 birds was present today -- the 2013 total was 10580 so this year we are up 41% on last October's count; the only previous count on the Humber that exceeded this was 15000 in 1959-1960 itself something of a one-off as the following season's peak fell to 5335 and numbers reached an all time low of 835 in 1989-90; it was 2003 - 2004 before the 5000 mark was exceeded again on the estuary; good news but still somewhat sad to hear the constant sound of gunfire as the birds arrive on their favoured feeding fields
Other birds of note this morning were 590 Avocets, the wintering adult Greenshank back in its creek for another winter, this bird has been returning to this wintering spot for at least 15 winters; 8000 Golden Plover, 1200 Dunlin, male Stonechat, Grey Wagtail.

Thanks for sharing this information Graham. I live amongst passing flocks and each year they chime the change into autumn and remind me of all the summer chores that i had forgotten to do. They have been a daily event for some time now but my local experiences do not reveal the numbers on the Humber. I am amazed at the figure and applaud your clicky clicky dedication for such an important task. Good work.