The above photo shows how frosty it was this morning, but it remained dry and bright for the final full patch walk of January.Birds were not as numerous as yesterday morning, mainly because the fields and paddocks were frozen solid, encasing all the food in an icy tomb. In the 3 and a half hour walk 43 species were recorded, much the same species as yesterday were seen, but four turned up today that didn't yesterday. A MISTLE THRUSH singing somewhere over the Wet Woods was one of them, and the TREECREEPER that decided to show itself in the Small Holding was another. The third species not seen yesterday was a MARSH TIT, good to see its still around, the last species was at first a bit confusing, I picked up an 'odd' looking bird coming towards me as I was crossing the Tree Nursery early in my walk, as it came nearer, I could see it was a PEREGRINE carrying a large item of prey, it must have been out at first light to get that meal! Two KESTRELS and a patch record peak total, of 3 SPARROWHAWKS were seen over the lake area, 2 males and a big female, all interacting with one another.
The first month of the year ends with a good total of 65 species, the second highest January total, 3 behind last years record tally, a little disappointing maybe, considering the combined total for all Januarys is 78. On the other hand the average number of species recorded for Jan. is 59.6, so looking at it in that light it's not so disappointing :-)
Looking at the Garden stats I had a good January, 24 species came in to use the garden, the joint best Jan. total with last year, helped by the LONG TAILED TIT that visited today, I dont get many of these. BRAMBLING and SISKIN were also seen today.
I am already looking forward to what February may bring, a little less frost I hope, thus increasing the chance of a duck species or two, i'll need them if I am going to match the Feb. record of 67, acheived last year!
Above and below are photo's of the sunrise this morning
Below one of the 3 Sparrowhawks seen over the Lake area
Below is one of 4 YELLOWHAMMERS seen at Migrant Alley
Lastly a cold looking REDWING seen in the College grounds
11 comments:
Beautiful photos Warren. It was very very frosty in my part of Kent too - would have loved to have visited Mote Park but was stuck at work!!
Nice pics Warren. Well done for January and good luck for February.
Phil
Really beautiful photos today Warren! Lovely sunrise. I think that is a great total for January and now you have all of February before you :)
Thank you very much for visiting and confirming the ID on Karen's blog, she is thrilled and has left a thank you on her site.
Hi Warren,
You got nice shots of the redwing ;-) Let's hope February will bring us more species and more sun!!!
Lovely photos Warren - well done on Januarys total, very impressive given the bad weather we all had! Here's to an even better February!
Congrats on the LTT by the way :-)
Your red wings are also different. Ours are the Red-wing Blackbirds with the red and yellow strip on the wings. And the other birds are very nice too.
I did have quite a surprise a few minutes ago. I have beer worrying about where the hawks are and haven't seen one for some period of time and about that time one flew down over my window and landed 6 feet away in the oak tree. My Sigma 400MM lens was on my camera laying on my table at the window and ready to go so in the minute or two the bird was here I got about 20 shots and am anxious to see if I have any surprises. It was a young male hawk but and think a sharp-shinned hawk judging from how small he was but then I will learn for sure as soon as I upload the pictures into my computer.
Oh my goodness...what a beautiful sunrise. So orange! A very good count even if you didn't meet last year's. All your worked pushed you well over the average. I hope Feb is stellar.
Well done with the Jan total Warren and all the best for the Feb one.
Great pics as always.
Nice sunrise shots! Congrats on 65 - that's pretty impressive given the weather you put up with.
Warren ,
Really like those dawn shots .
Good luck with the new month list .
Sheesh! You and Ken are making me so jealous! Course, in order to find birds one has to actually go out and find them (if you have an inactive yard this time of year, as I do)...my 'baby' is back from her cleaning in just one week so now I wait for a good day to go...hopefully this week. Did that make sense?! Ignore me...nice photos Warren!
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