Monday 10 October 2011

Early this morning, as I walked to work, I heard then saw two COMMON BUZZARDS. They flew from the Greenhouse Copse, where I presume they were roosting, good to have roosting Buzzards around!

This afternoon, after work, I went over to the lakes and scrubby wood area, but with a strong SW wind blowing it proved to be a bad idea as I couldn't hear a thing with the noise of the trees rustling! On the main lake there were just 4 MALLARD and 6 MOORHEN, plus a GREY HERON that waded out near to the middle of the lake, showing how shallow it has become with the lack of rain this Autumn. Only a few BLUE and GREAT TITS, a GOLDCREST, and a couple of BULLFINCH were seen - a very poor visit!

I made my way over to the Tree Nursery next, but it was also very quiet here, just a flyover MEADOW PIPIT and a Common Darter dragonfly got my attention. The rest of the visit was spent at my seat over at Migrant Alley, before sitting I walked the fields and paddocks, but the recently seen Wheatears have now gone, leaving just the LINNETS, GOLDFINCH and hundreds of Corvids.

On my seat I watched the surrounding sky, and noted the usual SPARROWHAWK up hunting, a KESTREL flew in and alighted on a fence rail for a few minutes before flying off  again. 3 SKYLARKS dropped into the sheep pasture, 2 PIED WAGTAILS flew to the Greenhouse Complex and plenty of HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULLS flew to and fro, visiting the surrounding off patch fields. A flock of half dozen HOUSE MARTINS fed for a while over the sheep pasture, before carrying on their long migration, but the sighting of the afternoon goes to the first CORMORANT (63) seen this month, taking the total to 63,  which is the 5th best tally for October thus far :-) 

No Chiffchaffs today!



Common Darter


Herring Gull






3 comments:

Lancs and Lakes Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

5th best already and still 3 weeks left...could be a good un!

Cheers

Davo

Jason K said...

Nice Common Darter shot Warren. I forget that Buzzards are not so Common in the SE of the country...Im guilty of taking them for granted at times on my patch

Anonymous said...

Pretty slow up & miserable up here for most of the day too, Warren. But i managed to bag myself a goody at the end of it.