Sunday 8 March 2009

After overnight rain, the morning dawned bright and cool, with a strong cold SW wind. I walked the same route round my patch as yesterday, and was finding the same species quite easily, except for the pochard of course, it's place on the lake had been taken by a pair of MUTE SWANS, quite an unusual occurrence, it's only in the last two winters that this species has been using the lakes. They were obviously used to human presence, as they came right up to me, probably thinking I had some food for them. Other birds on the lake were 6 CANADA GEESE, 4 MALLARD, and 2 CORMORANT, also whilst looking over the lake a single REDPOLL flew over. Siskin were more vocal than yesterday, small numbers were going over, and a lot more drumming from the GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS was heard.

Winter thrushes were few, just 20 FIELDFARE at migrant alley, with 8 REDWING, also 4 SKYLARK and a single MEADOW PIPIT were seen there. Whilst in the college grounds, I turned a corner, and just managed to see a Partridge run into cover, what kind I wasn't sure, as I only got a brief glimpse. I searched the surrounding area but it wasn't seen again - very frustrating! If it was a Grey partridge it would have been the first since 2007. I didn't find any spring migrants, but it won't be long now, I expect the first Chiffchaff to be here in the next 10 days.

One species seen today that wasn't recorded yesterday was LESSER BLACK BACK GULL, that helped todays total to 49, a quite respectable tally for march.

Above: One of the Mute Swans seen on the lake. Below is one of the college lambs, they are now allowed out onto the pasture at Migrant alley.Below is a view over migrant alley looking south, showing the horse paddocks, sheep pasture, the middle section is part of the maize stubble.



7 comments:

Oxonhoath Birds said...

Nice pic of the swan Warren. Would be nice to find some on Oxonhoath lake. Will be spending more time up there this year.

Steve said...

Another good day for you then Warren. Beter than mine thats for sure. Nice swan pic.

Anonymous said...

I like the swans too. It's nice that they decided to visit your patch of the woods Warren.

Stewart said...

Hi Warren, I think that your Redpoll is a Mealy. The large yellow bill and clearly defined black chin with squinting eyes point in that direction. I dont think you can be 100% from the photo as ideally you would need a size comparison or rump shot. Mealies are substantially bigger than lessers. In the field they are about the same as Linnet or Goldfinch whereas Lessers are Siskin sized...I have ringed a few and indeed used to ring some captive bred Mealies and Lessers some years back for a breeder!

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
Again a good number of species spotted. The maximum I saw in Iceland in one day was 52 and this happened only once. It is very nice when you see 25-30 species as we only do have 71 one species recorded regularly here, among which 20-25 are located in the North....
Good shot of the swan...

Kelly said...

...beautiful photos. Love the scene of the pasture, horse and distant hills.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Warren: What a beautiful swan.