Sunday 25 October 2009

A much better morning weatherwise, a clear blue sky, with little wind, although the wind picked up later, bringing in varying amounts of cloud.

I was able to get out at 06:15 this morning, now that it's light at that time, and during the 4 hour visit 45 species were recorded, just about what I would expect at this time of year. There wasn't any new species for the month seen, but a few birds turned up that aren't usual regulars. A small flock of GOLDFINCH, seen in alder trees along the college stream, contained at least 4 SISKIN and at least 1 REDPOLL, it was hard to count them as the leaves are still on the Alder tree's.

Migrant Alley had a few birds on the fields and paddocks, I watched a party of two dozen SKYLARK drop in on the seedling grass, and a mixed flock of around 25 birds, was made up of mostly YELLOWHAMMER, as well as 7 LINNETS, 4 MEADOW PIPITS and 2 REED BUNTINGS they were all around the tall hedge. A dozen FIELDFARE was a nice sight, they dropped down from the blue, and went straight for a hawthorne hedge, which still had a few berries on it, after the heavy cutting it recieved a couple of weeks ago. Both SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL were hunting around the greenhouse complex, the latter was there for most of the day.

A small movement of WOODPIGEONS was observed during the visit, several small flocks were seen heading south, involving around 70 -100 birds, also seen going over were 75 CANADA GEESE, and 32 GREYLAG GEESE, common birds, but still nice to watch as they speed low over the area, a lone CORMORANT was also seen heading south.

The wet woods had a mixed feeding flock of mainly GREAT, BLUE, and LONG TAILED TITS, but it also had two COAL TITS and two TREECREEPERS amongst them, with a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER following up.

The lake was it's usual quiet self, just two Canada Geese, 4 MALLARD, 6 MOORHEN and a single GREY HERON were seen there, the surrounding scrub had 4 BULLFINCH'S feeding in the bramble, and the only two GREENFINCH'S of my visit were seen here, this species is really getting hard to find on my patch now - even my garden feeders only have two or three at a time now.


Below is the rising sun - good to see it coming up before 07-00hrs again.

Below is a MAGPIE, caught in full flight.


The next two photo's of a COLLARED DOVE and a Great Spotted Woodpecker were taken from my garden.






8 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

nice maggie and gs pecker you did better than us with these two - today singularly difficult to get a decent shot away in our gloom

Cheers

D

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Warren: Great sunrise shot, we didn't see the sun for several days. That Magpie looks great on wing and the woodpeckr is so neat.

Sharon said...

Great photo of Magpie, Warren, glad to hear the weather has improved on yesterday!

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
Beautiful tour you still did! The sunrise shot is wonderful!
I went after the robin but did not get any images!!!!
Concerning the redpolls, it appears that they are both mealy redpoll, one being an adult (the white one), the other a younger bird (the brownish one). It is quite common that they are differently colored, but we still investigate if it is not the subspecies from Greenland!!

Anonymous said...

The first 2 shots are crackers, Warren. Well captured.

Jann said...

Really lovely photos Warren. I just posted a magpie too...I enjoy seeing them. The woodpecker photo is awesome! Nice sunrise shot...we change the clocks back an hour soon, too.

Simon said...

Some nice photos today Warren!

ShySongbird said...

You had better weather than us by the sound of it Warren, we had high winds and squally showers all day. Lovely Magpie photo and of course GS Woodpecker ;)