Monday 15 June 2009

The days fine weather ended about 13:30, I got in from work at 13: 25. The moment I closed the door behind me, a large clap of thunder heralded a torrential downpour, did I do something really bad in a previous life ?

Half an hour later the rain eased, but the next storm could be seen on the horizon, I had just enough time to walk round the tree nursery, but in the rush to beat the storm little was seen, a WHITETHROAT was scolding me from the hedge, it's young were probably hidden there, a GREEN WOODPECKER flew up off the floor, and 3 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS flew west, the usual DUNNOCK, ROBIN, BLACKBIRD, WREN and busy SWALLOWS were also about, alas though I had to beat a hasty retreat back home when the rain came in again.

I had another short venture out at 17:30, this time to migrant alley and the fields behind the greenhouse, I only had an hour and the highlight of the visit was watching both a KESTREL then a SPARROWHAWK get chased out of town by the joint forces of Swallows and PIED WAGTAILS. Something spooked up around 100 ROOKS, 20-30 STARLINGS, and 20 or so Feral Pigeons from the other side of Migrant Alley, it could have been one of the local peregrines but I didn't see it.

Not a very good wild-lifing afternoon, lets hope for better tomorrow.

Below is a photo of one of my Peanut feeders, BLUE TITS were all over it!


You can see how dark it got as the thunder storm approached, in this LINNET photo.


10 comments:

Ken. said...

Hi Warren.
I know what you mean about the weather. I ventured out locally today, the first time for a while and I too got caught out my the weather. Still I hope you have a better day tomorrow.I have one of those caged peanut feeders but I haven't used it yet. Do you rate them??

Warren Baker said...

Hello ken.
I bought my cage feeders nearly ten years ago, and they have stopped the squirrels in their tracks! The birds soon get used to hopping in and out of them.

Kelly said...

Hi Warren,
...we are fighting the rain here also. Last week on vacation in the south at the ocean it was sunny every day. I had forgotten what rain was like...until we headed north to go home. How depressing. Hope your weather improves tomorrow.

Mike said...

Nice Linnet pic Warren, Ive been seeing a lot of these lately, just havent gotten close enough for a photo.

Phil and Mandy said...

The Linnet is a gorgeous photo Warren. Just got back online, broadband played up and brand new Dell PC has had a hard drive failure after a week. Having to use my laptop to blog.

Greenie said...

Warren ,
Did better than you , and stayed dry in the garden till 1630 , then it fell down .
We obviously wern't so bad in that previous life .

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
Wow the feeder coverage is impressive. Looks like the blue tits like your nuts!!! It is all the same around here, bad light, correct weather but windy and rainy time to time. I went out only an hour today, but managed to see the ring-necked duck again with its complete family!!!! Let's hope the sun will reach us soon again.

Kingsdowner said...

No rain here at all yesterday...the sun shines on the righteous.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Warren: Looks like your feeder is squirrel proof.

Richard said...

Hm, English weather looks unfriendly.Lucky me, here is sun everywhere. My town has 311 sunny days /year, which is quite nice. I saw also linnets lately and a lot, i mean a lot of starlings. This is quite unusual.A, and the beeaters, they are lovely, but very difficult to get close enough for a decent pic.
So, i posted instead a visacardeater on my blog :).