Saturday 20 February 2010

Just for a change, the day dawned bright and sunny, but with a hard frost - i'll take that after the recent days i've had to endure!

A four hour walk of my patch produced 42 species, of which the highlight was finding the first LESSER REDPOLL (58) of the month, it was found feeding with half a dozen GOLDFINCH that were in the line of Alder trees that forms the boundary between Migrant Alley and the Greenhouse Complex. It was also good to see a couple of SKYLARKS at Migrant Alley, the first seen since 13th.

Over at the lake I found it to be 3 quarters frozen over, but on the remaining patch of water 10 CANADA and 7 GREYLAG GEESE were seen, as well as just 4 MALLARD and two MOORHEN. All the usual suspects were found in the scrub and Wet Woods, COAL TIT, NUTHATCH, LONG TAILED TIT, GOLCREST but not the Treecreeper!

3 Raptor species were seen, the first was an early sighting of a SPARROWHAWK flying low and fast over the Tree Nursery, but the other two were seen later in the day as I was scanning the sky from my bedroom window, the KESTREL, over the Greenhouses, and the other was a new species for the month a COMMON BUZZARD (59) which was being mobbed by 15 ROOKS!

The two afternoon additions brought the daylist to 44, a respectable tally for a February day,.

The sunny frosty conditions were ideal to try out my new camera, and I took quite a few photo's
Above: BLACKBIRD, and Below: ROBIN. Common species, but very photogenic.

Below: A classic frosty PHEASANT photo

Below: Is an attempt to capture the Lesser Redpoll but it was never in full view.
Below: A LONG TAILED TIT - which had unfortunately lost it's tail!

Below: One of the hundreds of FIELDFARE that were on every open field, along with their allies the REDWINGS

The next two photo's are of BULFINCH'S, they were seen in their usual habitat around the Greenhouse Complex



Early morning sun piercing the woodland gloom


The last photo is of some of the Oaks that I have applied to have tree preservation orders put on. Yesterday I had confimation that the orders have been served! Brilliant!!!!!











16 comments:

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Warren: You got some neat bird captures but your scenery/sun photos were outstanding today. I'm glad you like my fun squirrel post.

Anonymous said...

The bird photographs are exciting for me to see as we don't have them here.

I don't know what you meant by the news about your trees? I hope it doesn't mean they will be topped, cut down.

Nic Squirrell said...

Great news about the trees, well done!

Gorgeous photos as usual.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Congrats on those trees Warren - enjoy your reward tomorrow - a patch lifer for you I hope - you deserve it.
Plenty of pics there I still need for the year too.

Cheers

Dave

Monika said...

I definitely think your robins are more photogenic than our robins.

Bizarre tail-less long-tailed tit!

Congrats on the trees! Good to reconfirm that one person still can make a difference.

Sharon said...

Congratulations on the trees Warren, thats brilliant news!
Lovely photos - my Lesser Redpoll hasn't returned yet :-(

ShySongbird said...

Great news on the trees Warren, your persistence really paid off!

Lovely photos with the new equipment, nice to see the Bullfinches and well done with the Lesser Redpoll. Poor little LTT, probably a stupid question but would it be likely to grow back?

Warren Baker said...

Songbird,
The LTT's Tail will come back during its next moult. :-)

Anonymous said...

Back again...

to say I am very happy to learn the trees will be left as they are to live their lives without being cut down early. I think trees are one of the finest things the good lord made. I wish people would plant more of them and take better care of what they have.

Thanks for coming back and telling me about them.

Pete Woodruff said...

I must join in the congratulations about the superb Oaks having the preservation orders SLAPPED on them Warren....good for you and well done.

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
THat is a gorgeous post mate. Two more species and a lot of nice pictures. I love the robin picture a lot but I would be desperate to see a bullfinch. Last time I saw them was in Denmark two years ago ;-(

Anonymous said...

"Brilliant!!!!!"

Indeed Warren, great stuff.

EP Andy said...

Hi Warren

It amazes me that we live only about 3 miles apart, as the Golden Eagle flies, but the diversity of species you see compare4d to the ones over here. I managed a first ull patch walk for aboslutely ages this morning and managed 51 species including two patch ticks but not one raptor species. It would be interesting how many could be seen in our relatively small geographic area in single day.

swatson said...

have to give my "well done"with the preservation of the trees.......you must be proud to have done your bit for conservation..
Sheila

Kelly said...

I really like your photos today....the first shot is spectacular, and the little fuzzball of a bird you call a tail-less Longtailed Tit is adorable!!! Love the Bullfinches as well...(and I always love the robins).

Jann said...

Very nice walk with you on this day :o) Love that bullfinch, and the pose of the robin! Again, I'm jealous! Love the streaming sunlight photo too. It's sunny here today but I still can't rouse myself to go hunt for bird shots. Maybe tomorrow. Winter blues, ugh!