July is when the ornithological autumn begins and the first of the southbound migrants start to pass through the island.
The small Gull numbers have built up rapidly since they started to arrive in mid-June, with Black-headed Gulls already in the hundreds and Mediterranean Gulls not being too far behind, with a high count of 86 in Grouville Bay on the 19th June. Among these are always a few colour-ringed and so far, we have seen birds from Poland, Germany and the Netherlands returning to the bay almost to the same day as in previous years.
The First waders have started passing through with Green and Common Sandpipers being the most numerous so far, small numbers of Redshank and Whimbrels and a couple of Black-tailed Godwits which visited St Ouen’s Pond for a day.
Swifts have begun to passing through in reasonable numbers, with over 200 seen in St Ouen’s Bay on one day. The first passerine migrant to be seen was a Willow Warbler which stopped off on the Ecréhous on the 16th, but only a handful since.
Offshore seabird numbers are slowly creeping up with the critically endangered Balearic Shearwater once again starting to return in numbers to spend the summer feeding and moulting off our west coast. This area offshore has become one of their most important autumn areas and we most do the utmost to protect it, not just for them but the thousands of other seabirds, marine mammals and tuna which now frequent this area in numbers between July and October.
