Field notes from the pine ridge and the reservoir. One observer, one route, one pair of binoculars.
Warblers came through early this year
14 September 2026The first wave arrived on the eighth, a full ten days ahead of my average for this patch. Two mornings of northerly wind after a warm week, and the pines along the upper track were full of movement at first light.
Numbers were not remarkable, but the mix was: five species in one small stand of birch, and a single bird feeding low enough to be seen properly for once instead of being a silhouette against the sky.
By the eleventh it was quiet again. Migration on a small patch is mostly absence, punctuated by two or three mornings that make the other forty worth walking.
Counting at the reservoir, sixth season
30 August 2026Same route, same hour, first Saturday of the month. Six years of this now, which is finally long enough to see something other than weather in the numbers.
Wildfowl are up slightly; waders are not, and the shoreline they used is now under willow scrub. I am not going to pretend a single observer with binoculars has proved anything. But the willow is real, and the birds that liked open mud have gone elsewhere.
A note on light
11 August 2026Everything I misidentify, I misidentify between six and seven in the morning with the sun behind the bird. The fix is not better optics. The fix is walking the loop in the other direction.
Kept by one person with ordinary binoculars, walking the same two hours every week. Records go to the county recorder at the end of each season, and nowhere else.
Counts are my own, made from the public path. Nothing here is a rarity report.