Thursday 1 October 2009

October starts where September left off weatherwise, it was mostly sunny and still quite warm, with little wind.

One of the first birds on the list this morning as I walked in to work was a KESTREL, always good to find one early on in the month, and a CHIFFCHAFFF sang from the scrub headland at Migrant Alley, one of the few summer birds that will go onto the Oct. list.

This afternoon I paid a visit to the Lake and scrub area, via the small holding and wet woods. A good number of the ''core species'' were recorded, quite a few were associating with a LONG TAILED TIT flock in the small holding orchard, species such as BLUE and GREAT TIT, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER were found with them.

At the lake just the usual MALLARD and MOORHEN were about, but I picked up a few Finch's for the list, and a GREEN WOODECKER, that were all seen in one of the nearby gardens.

An hour over at Migrant Alley, and I added LINNET, SKYLARK, MEADOW PIPIT, PIED WAGTAIL and all the corvids to the months list, as well as four Gull species, LESSER BLACK BACKED, HERRING, BLACK HEADED and COMMON GULL.

So 38 species were found to kick off October, and the target is 68, a very good record, set last year. The combined October list is 82, so it should be possible - in theory!!


Above: I surprised this fox, over at the lakeside scrub.

Below is a Lesser Black backed Gull, one of three that flew over heading NW



11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just shows, Warren. I recorded 41 species ( one that i haven`t added yet), but yet i only had 1 Gull sp ( Black-headed).

Ken. said...

Hi Warren.
Your off to a good start, 37 out of 68 is a great start. Long may it inprove.

Phil and Mandy said...

Hi Waren, have just purchased a dedicated Swarovski digiscoping adaptor and I am off to Bough Beech on saturday morning to give it a whirl. Lets hope for some good shots. Regards Phil

Anonymous said...

What a nice surprise to see. A fox. I love them. I grew up along a railroad track and the train ran up in the morning and came back at night. I used to walk the railroad looking for hobos and sometimes saw them and talked to them. I also used to see lots of chicken feathers all over the track behind Waxy Burris' farm. The foxes would get in his hen house and steal a chicken and eat it on the rail road tracks. I never saw one but saw the feathers.

Anonymous said...

Great start to October Warren - plenty of interest and variety.

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Warren: Fun capture of the Red Fox, thanks for sharing the little fellow.

Kelly said...

...you really did have a good start to your list. I enlarged the fox photo, and he is adorable! You find foxes much easier than I can. It's been almost 4 years (I think) since I've seen one roaming our area. Lovely flight photo as well...

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
That's a good beginning! You got more than half of the previous record and still 30 days to go! Here, apparently, very few vagrants are now observed but I guess there are still there and that bird watchers are staying home because the weather is turning nasty, really nasty!!!
Let's hope we will get some light and that the rain will stop this week end.

Jann said...

Aw, I'd love a fox photo! Been awhile since I've seen one...congrats on a great start for the Oct. count, sounds like you'll beat your record.

ShySongbird said...

That sounds like a very good start to the month Warren! The fox photo enlarges nicely.

Sharon said...

What a great start to the month - the fox photo is fab!