Wednesday 23 December 2009

The above photo of a Black Rabbit was the only photo I took this afternoon. The weather really was dismal for the 90 mins spent out on my patch, Low cloud, fog, and rain plagued me, and with all the snow melt dripping from everything it made for a unpleasant walk.

Unsurprisingly, the birds were few and far between, just the really common stuff seen in the wet woods - LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, BLACKBIRD and the likes. The lake was at last showing signs of thawing out, but nothing at all was on it, and the surrounding scrub looked really inhospitable to any warm blooded creature, however a flock of 8 REDWING dropped in for a rest, before moving off again a few moments later.
Over the still snowy Tree Nursey, nothing stirred, and at Migrant Alley it was the same story, if anything was flying over, it was obscured by the low cloud and fog!
The only good thing of note today was on my walk into work, when then, at least, it was clear and crispy with a hard frost, a flock of 7 GREYLAG GEESE flew over Migrant Alley, about time this species was seen! 64 species now for the month, that leaves me with eight days to find 10 new species to beat the record december total of 73. An unlikely scenario, but it is still the second best December ever, and 4 species better than the 7 year December average, any species that turn up now will be a real bonus!
As of tomorrow I'm on holiday, so all eight days will be spent birding, surely i'll find a few more for the months list, watch this space............

5 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

So that's where Roger ended up - me and Frank haven't seen him on Patch 1 for ages....

Happy christmas

Dave

Jann said...

Aww, what an adorable black bunny! Enjoy your holiday, and birding!

Ken. said...

Hi Warren.
It isn't a bad total so far for December, it isn't over yet. At least now you can put more time into finding those missing birds.
Looks like the weather is going to be better this weekend.

Pete Woodruff said...

'As of tomorrow I'm on holiday so all eight days will be spent birding'. WOW......a more active birder than me then Warren (present time excepted) and that's something.

Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Good luck with your time off work, Warren.
Like Ken says, the weekend`s not looking too bad, but more snow expected next week.