The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Hi All.

At work on the airfield at RAF Waddington doing might bit of airfield bird control and safety, the tower contacted me and asked if it was the migration period as they were getting radar returns typical of birds.

This started just before 2200 and was coming E to W from Coningsby to the west of Waddington and seeming to disappear just after the Lincoln edge and it appeared high level. It was first thought that it was a glitch in the software but they switched another high powered and seperate radar around onto the other approach and got strong returns at 1500ft crossing the approach a couple of times!! I went to a couple of the quietest and cloud and light free areas of the airfield but could'nt see or hear anything.

Any thoughts please ??

Brian

Ps. Although i did have Quail calling at one location which was a bonus.

Could it have been a solar flare (10cm radio burst) which can affect radar? There was one today.
see Solarham.net

July sees some big east west overland movements of Common Scoter flocks with the birds travelling at good height. When picked up over the Humber they are usually very high and presumably we miss a lot of flocks. There have also been big numbers of Curlew arriving from Scandy in recent weeks and I have heard them high over Laughton Forest going west late evening up to 21:00 so I would guess they also pass over central Lincs.