September update

Unfortunately birding has rather taken a back seat during the last month due to work and other commitments at weekends. The shortening days have also conspired to prevent me from making visits before work which is rather frustrating!
The first week of the month was spent on the Isle of Wight on a family break. We were very fortunate to have a sunny week. I did get to do some birding every morning before the rest of the family were up and found a few migrants during my forays.We were staying not too far from Bembridge Harbour which is where I did most of my watching( which is a great place to see good numbers of Med Gulls).
There seemed to be Redstarts everywhere we went which was great as I've not had one on the patch this year.

I spent some time in the pursuit of Red Squirrels which proved very difficult to photograph although I did get some iffy pictures.
Anyway back to the patch. I did add Yellow Wagtail (109) to the year total with a flyover on Sunday 8th Sept, which had been a long time coming!
On the 17th of the month I got a decent walk on a day that looked promising but didn't turn up anything new although I saw 5 Buzzards and a juvenile Hobby circling over the lake.There were still about 30 Swallows, 10 House Matins and 2 Sand Martins over the orchards and plenty of Chiffchaffs around the lake with a few Meadow pipits going over plus 2 Siskins.
The first Water Rail of the Autumn was seen on the edge of the reeds on the 22nd.