Sunday 11 October 2009

A dismally grey sunday walk round my patch, provided me with 48 species, which is quite good for an October day. Three species turned up this morning that weren't seen yesterday - a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, a COMMON GULL, on the new seeded field at Migrant Alley and a small flyover of 3 -4 HOUSE MARTINS also at Migrant Alley, the latter species may well be the last of their kind I see until next spring, although I have got two later dates than today, the 16th, and 22th Oct, 2004 and 2006 respectively.

Other than that, it was a near identical line up to yesterday, the
YELLOWHAMMERS had increased from one, to six birds, again seen in one of the new hedges at Migrant Alley, both KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK hunted over various parts of my patch, just two LINNETS were seen, but SKYLARKS had increased to at least 20 out on the new seeded field, a few MEADOW PIPITS were with them, and more flew staight over. As I write this a SPARROWHAWK has just made a kill at my garden feeders - a GOLDFINCH :-(
I saw that the Hawk had a ring on its left leg, this bird is the one that my friend rang 5 years ago as an adult bird, I thought this hawk had died, I havn't seen it since March. It also means there are two Male hawks at the feeders - thats it, the feeders are coming down as soon as they are empty!!

Anyway, back to this morning, where the only other species of note was a CHIFFCHAFF, seen in the tree nursery. No new species for the October list today, the two most likely being Fieldfare and Cormorant.

Below is a very blurry Yellowhammer - but you can still appreciate the Yellowness!

5 comments:

ShySongbird said...

The lovely golden colour of that Yellowhammer has brightened up a very wet and miserable Sunday. It has rained here most of the day, only now, after 5pm ,has the sun come through. I think it is colder since the rain too.

It seems like you and your garden birds are being ganged up on with TWO Sparrowhawks!

Ken. said...

Hi Warren. Trust you to go one better than the rest of us.Seriously though I can appreciate either the male or female Sparrowhawk looking for a meal when it turns up in my garden now and again, but 2 males isn't good especially if they are coming a bit too often.
Don't get me wrong, there a lovely bird,but I still like to
see the Passerines putting on a show at the feeders.

Anonymous said...

Nothing added today then, Warren. Hopefully that`ll not happen to me, tomorrow. I`ve plenty to go at.

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
Well you still got a nice day and saw a yellowhammer. The story of the ringed hawk is incredible... Nice to see that you can follow it over five years.
i went out all day yesterday, to check for migrants and got five new species... 92 now and people are saying that we did not see half of what is around...

Jann said...

The only yellow bird about now, here, is the meadowlark; it's going to be a long 7 mo's until I get to see the pretty song birds again, UGH.