Friday 7 March 2008

The morning was briefly wet, bringing some welcome rain to the fields and woods, but bearly enough to wet the dirt tracks. As I walked to work, a count of 100+ FIELDFARE was made in the manured field, with just a few REDWING, but when I came back home through the field they had all moved on.
Once home I decided to watch from the garden, from 2 - 4 pm, 11 species were seen in the vacinity, and another 16 ventured in to feed. the pick of them was a male SISKIN, but it was good to see NUTHATCH, COAL TIT, and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER come in with the more common visitors. Looking from the top front window of my house, I could see 265 FIELDFARE, feeding in the pasture 50m away - but not one Redwing amongst them, just 2 MISTLE THRUSH, 3 BLACKBIRDS a SONGTHRUSH and a PIED WAGTAIL, a little behind this flock is the greenhouse complex, and at our end of it there is a small catchment for rainwater, where 2 MALLARD sat on the rubber surround.

Tommorow I'm attending the regional ringing conference, so no visit will be made to my patch (this means a flood of Chiffchaff, and Wheatear will pass through!) next entry will be sunday pm.

Male Siskin At Sunflower Hearts
March is the usual month that these small finch's visit my feeders.

1 comment:

Mike said...

Great birds Siskins, we had 10+ in the garden this year compared to 1 or 2 last year, sadley they have now moved on, only the odd one around.
I look forward to seeing some photos of wheatear. Mike.