Rippingale nature columnist visits RSPB Titchwell Marsh in Norfolk and RSPB Freiston Shore

October more than lived up to my hopes for an exciting autumn, writes Rippingale nature columnist Ian Misselbrook.

The weather, as you know, was very mixed but the east and north east winds were often followed by calmer dry days giving opportunities to go out and about.

In mid-October my wife and I spent a long weekend in north Norfolk, ostensibly to celebrate our wedding anniversary, but with more than a little birdwatching thrown in. Perhaps the excuse of going away to celebrate is wearing a bit thin?!

Anyway, Saturday, October 12, found us at RSPB Titchwell Marsh a little before the visitor centre opened. Skeins of newly arrived pink-footed geese passed overhead to settle in stubble fields inland of the reserve. Their V formation and squeeky calls confirmed their identity.

More exciting and earlier than I have expected, was a constant stream of redwings; small thrushes that nest in Scandinavia but winter in the UK to escape the hard winter weather. Although mostly nocturnal migrants, at daybreak they have to continue their journey if they are still over the sea. Several hundred redwings passed through the reserve. Much scarcer and frustratingly difficult to get good views, were at least two yellow-browed warblers, vagrants from Russia that called from the reserve’s fen trail along with several more common chiffchaffs.

Back in south Lincolnshire, a friend of mine counted more than 12,000 redwings passing over the RSPB’s reserve at Freiston Shore on the Wash. These observations along with arrivals of many species of migrant birds has given rise to speculation that we might be in for a very hard winter.

The easterly winds brought sea birds normally observed at distance on the north sea closer to our shores. Some of these were driven inland and settled briefly on inland waters. My highlight was a red-throated diver easily visible from the visitor centre at RSPB Frampton Marsh.

As I write fieldfares, siskins, bramblings and unprecedented sightings of hawfinches are being reported in our immediate area; so please keep your eyes and ears open.

Before the clocks went back to GMT I walked west for a few miles from my village to meet my wife on her return from work in Colsterworth. This took me past some of the local woodlands where fallow deer are rutting. The roars of competing bucks carries for miles and leaves me in no doubt that autumn has arrived.