Phenomenal movement of Siskin at Tynemouth, Northumberland
On the 24 June 2020 like any other morning I arose at the crack of dawn to look through and empty my two moth traps, it didn’t really get light for this task until 04.00am.
As I was going through the first trap I heard the familiar call of the Siskin (Spinus spinus), I didn’t really take much notice at first, but as I finished the traps I looked up and couldn’t believe what I was seeing, the whole view of the sky was filled with Siskins. Grabbing my camera to get a few shots was my next priority but being on the east coast the sun was rising so the images were rubbish looking into the light.
I quickly jumped into the car and drove around to the Sealife Centre carpark to try and get better images as the sun was now on my back. Birds were coming through in flocks varying from 20 to 80 birds, and at a constant rate and all about ten to twenty feet up above my house and surrounding trees. By 06.30 I had in excess of 6500 birds all moving south. Also intermingled with these birds were smaller flocks of Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) of which a grand total of 141 birds were counted.
As all this was going on I posted on our local Whatsapp group at 05.24 “Big movement of Siskins this morning, and also in that message, 16 Crossbills flying south at 05.13”. Again at 06.07 I posted “Absolutely hundreds of Siskins on the move south at the moment” this was mainly to alert any local birders that happened to be awake at the time. .
I also had a phone call with my friend Stu Thompson who was on the other side of the Tyne on South Shields pier his reply on Twitter “Looking back from end of pier to the parks they looked like a swarm of Midge! Cheers for the heads up” .
I have never witnessed anything like this before in all my years of birding, where did they originate from and where were they going is anyone’s guess.
Tom Tams
25 June 2020
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