Wednesday 20 May 2009

At last the wind had dropped for my walk this afternoon, making it feel alot warmer. I visited the tree nursery, Migrant Alley and the wet ditch along the NW boundary. GREENWOODPECKER, STOCKDOVE, DUNNOCK and CHAFFINCH were all that was seen in the nursery, I checked the small drainage pool for damselflies, but only Large Red was seen, I also saw a Great Crested Newt come up for air, then dive back down again.

Over at Migrant Alley, I was very surprised to yet again see a MEDITERRANEAN GULL, just for a minute or so. It was feeding on the seedling Maize field, but flew of when a tractor arrived to put on some Nitrate. SKYLARK, LINNET, STARLING, ROOK, JACKDAW and PIED WAGTAIL were around the sheep pasture and horse paddocks, and HOUSE MARTIN, SWALLOW and SWIFT were feeding in the sky above. One of the PEREGRINES flew over, as did a LAPWING and as I made my way to the wet ditch, a KESTREL flew across.

I photographed some kind of a spider having lunch, and checked out the Damselflies, but the same species as yesterday were found, it's still quite early to find anything different. Thats about it for today, short and sweet!

Above a Cock LINNET showed off his bright plumage, and below is the Kestrel that flew across the wet ditch.

As I was leaving Migrant Alley this BLACK HEADED GULL flew over, note the difference from yesterdays Med Gull pic. Chocolate head not black, and black ends to the primaries on the wing tip, not all white.
Below is the spider eating some unfortunate insect




7 comments:

Chris said...

hi Warren,
It is nice that the wind has gone down. her eit is coming back and the sun is slowly going away. We have to find a way not to share our sunny days but to get them at the same time!
Cool observation once again. Congrats!

Greenie said...

Warren ,
Catching up on this and your last post .
Would agree with Dean on female Azure last night . Both female Azure and Red Eyed Damselflies very similar . Tell tale are the antehumeral stripes on thorax , parallel to abdomen , full length for Azure , half length for Red Eyed .
Probably didn't help with my mis ID on 15th. , sorry about that .
Great without that wind .

Monika said...

Great back to back comparison of the black-headed and med. gulls. Glad the wind has died down for you!

ShySongbird said...

Lovely Linnet photo Warren and I'm glad the weather has improved a bit, it is a bit better here today. Interesting also to read the distinction between the two gulls.

Kelly said...

Your Black-headed and Mediterranean Gulls are striking. I like their looks...and there is that barbed-wire fence again. I always like the juxtaposition of the sweet innocent bird sitting on the "fence that means business!"

Ken. said...

Hi Warren.
Pleased you finally got out and about in somedecent weather. Well done on seeing the Great Crested Newt.Not something you see every day.

RODE ORM said...

You have a long list of birds, not bad.Here in Romania, birding is quite a weird hobby, but slowly the menthality is changing. I am a birdwatcher since 2000 and I saw a lot of them during my 7 years of wandering across the country being a cameraman for a fishing TV feature.