Following all the great birds that have been turning up at Spurn over the last couple of weeks, can you really afford to miss this?!

Spurn just isn’t for experts or more experienced birders. The observatory welcomes beginners and those who want to refresh their birding knowledge and ensure they get it right from the start. The Basic Birding Skills one-day workshops do this. No Tests, just helpful, friendly guidance and support. Hot buffet lunch included.

Four dates available – to book your tickets, CLICK HERE

A lot of people have asked if it would be possible to have copies of some of the photographs that were shown on Saturday evening prior to the lecture. We are pleased to say that Dave Tucker who took all the photographs, has now uploaded them to his Flickr account and you can now go into the album and download as many as you want!

To access the album – CLICK HERE. To download a photograph, click on it from the thumbnail view to open it and then click the down pointing arrow in the bottom right-hand corner.

Well that’s another Spurn Migration Festival over – we hope that you all enjoyed it despite the deluge on Saturday! We think it was our best Migfest yet despite the rain and the feedback has been phenomenal so far.

There are so many people to thank for making it the huge success it was – too many to name individually, but a big THANK YOU to the BTO, Spurn Bird Observatory and particularly Sue and Andrew Wells at Westmere Farm and the “Spurn Ladies” for keeping everyone fed and watered over the weekend. Also our major sponsor Swarovski Optik for the Martin Garner Award for Spurn Young Birders. All the presenters for delivering such fantastic talks – especially our international visitors David La Puma, Bjorn Malmhagen, and Michael Lanzone. Thanks to all our exhibitors, especially Rare Bird Alert for providing “Spurn Pagers”, the artists and to all the volunteers who worked so hard over the course of the weekend. And last but not least of course – yourselves for coming along and sharing Migfest with us!

We would welcome any feedback you that may have about this year’s festival. Is there anything you’d like to see in future festivals? We can’t promise of course, but we’d like to hear from you – however sadly we can’t do anything about the weather! Please use the “Contact Us” function on the website to drop us an email.

The dates for next year’s festival will be announced on the website in due course – please keep checking back here.

Just to let everyone know, the title of Mark Pearson’s talk at 14:00 on Saturday at Migfest has changed – it is now “Filey International – Arrivals and Departures at North Yorkshire’s Bird Observatory”. One not to be missed!

We have some great sponsors  / exhibitors at this years Spurn Migration Festival.  We would like to say a big thank you to them all for helping us stage the Migfest and hopefully make it the best one yet.

There is hopefully something to interest everyone this year. The exhibitors will be in the barn areas at Westmere Farm and also up by the Sea-watching Hide, so please take some time to take a look.

Sea-watching Hide

• Swarovski
• Opticron

Main Barn                                         

• Spurn Bird Observatory
• BTO
• Westmere farm
• Birding Abroad
• Yorkshire Coast Nature
• Birdnet Information
• Waderquest
• Rare Bird Alert
• Second Nature Book Stall
• Heather Gatt Art
• Grant Arms Hotel
• Startbirding
• Wildsounds
• British Birds/NGB
• Kens Bookstall
• Ivans Bookstall
• Skeals
• Richard Johnson Art

Art Section

• Ray Scally
• Darren Woodhead
• Richard Thewlis

Small Lecture Barn

• John Law Art

Sunday produced another great day for birds at Spurn and bodes well for this weeks Migration Festival. Below is an extract from the Sightings page from the Spurn Bird Observatory website:

Due to the relatively strong winds most action was over the sea and with it the first good Skua movement.
On the move over the sea mainly south was 8 Wigeon, 139 Teal, 46 Common Scoter, 1 Great crested Grebe, 11 Red throated Diver, 71 Fulmar, 24 Manx Shearwater, 456 Gannet, 2 Pomarine Skua, 42 Arctic Skua, 1 Long tailed Skua, 5 Bonxie, 1 Yellow legged Gull and 111 Herring Gull.

Also on the move was 1 Grey Heron, 1 Marsh Harrier, 55 Oystercatcher, 3 Ringed Plover, 6 knot, 6 Sanderling, 9 Dunlin in, 2 Ruff in, 15 Black tailed Godwit, 104 Bar tailed Godwit, 3 Whimbrel, 3 Green Sandpiper in, 9 Turnstone, 4 Swift, 17 Sand Martin, 38 Swallow, 151 Meadow Pipit and 3 Carrion Crow.

Other good sightings were 2 Little Stint, 5 Curlew Sandpiper, 3 Ruff, 11 Black tailed Godwit, 27 Whimbrel, 390 Curlew, 1 Spotted Redshank, 10 Greenshank, 1 Wood Sandpiper, 1 Common Sandpiper, 43 Mediterranean Gull, Cuckoo at the Warren, 1 Tree Pipit, 1 Redstart, 3 Whinchat, 12 Wheatear, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Garden Warbler, 1 Chiffchaff, 6 Willow Warbler and the 1st Pied Flycatcher and Spotted Flycatcher for a few days.

Check out the sightings each day on the Spurn Obs website.

It’s still not too late to get your tickets for what promises to be the best Migfest yet!

Spurn Point – © Rodger Radcliffe

If anyone fancies a trip down to the Point including a visit to the lighthouse during the Spurn Migration Festival, then visit the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust website “What’s On” page, then search ‘Spurn Safari’ on the 10th & 11th September 2016 and follow the instructions to make your booking. All Spurn Migration Festival ticket holders will receive a free cup of tea or coffee with a slice of millionaire shortbread or scone and cream. Just show the staff your MigFest ticket or wristband when claiming your free refreshments. Spaces are limited so best to book early.

ALL VISITORS TO THIS YEARS SPURN MIGRATION FESTIVAL

Please note that there is to be NO PARKING on Kilnsea Road in the vicinity of Westmere Farm at anytime. Free parking is provided to the rear of Westmere Farm.

Thank you for your co-operation.

As you will already have seen, the Saturday evening lecture at this years Spurn Migration Festival will be delivered by our international partners from Falsterbo and Cape May Bird Observatories. Here, the top man from Cape May – David La Puma – says a few words about the up coming festival. Hopefully you can understand him – he does have a translator just in case!