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| A view through the Wet Woods |
A moderate frost greeted me this morning, and the sunshine that accompanied it lasted throughout the 3 and half hour full patch walk. A slightly below average 41 species was recorded for the morning, but it included some good patch species, the best being a flight of 13
MANDARIN DUCK (
54) that flew over the Small Holding early in the visit, they may well have been flushed from the lakes. Other early birds seen there were a KESTREL, and two GREEN WOODPECKERS, while in the distance a MISTLETHRUSH was singing loud and clear.
On the Lakes today, ice was covering parts of them, but 8 MALLARD and a GREY HERON were on the open part of the main lake, and 10 Mallards and three MOORHEN were on the small lake, nothing was on the ornamental lake. A look around the adjacent Scrubby Woods was an average affair, with NUTHATCH, BULLFINCH, SISKIN, GOLDCREST, and a couple of flyover FIELDFARE, the only winter thrushes seen today.
Making my way over to the Tree Nursery and Pub Field, a CORMORANT flew over, and a SPARROWHAWK was watched as it flew over the Greenhouse Complex. Just 2 MEADOW PIPIT were of any note in the Tree Nursery, and the first LAPWINGS were arriving on the Pub Field, 26 dropped in to join the 18 BLACK HEADED GULLS already there.
My next stop was at Migrant Alley, here two SKYLARKS were out on the sheep pasture, along with the usual crowd of ROOKS and JACKDAWS, plus a few more Black headed Gulls. Flyovers by HERRING GULL, YELLOWHAMMER and PIED WAGTAIL were also noted here.
The College Grounds were visited next, and the usual haul of regular species were seen here, a flock of LONG TAILED TITS gave me my only bird photo's of the visit, and the likes of DUNNOCK, GREENFINCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, and HOUSE SPARROW were found for the daylist.
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| Long Tailed Tit |
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| Long Tailed Tit |
I spent some time watching and photographing the birds at my garden feeders this afternoon, where I was amused to see two male Sparrowhawks almost collide as they sped through the garden from opposite ends!
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| Greenfinch |
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| Great Spotted Woodpecker |
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| COLLARED DOVE |
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| GREAT TIT |
9 comments:
Nice shots and like the view through the wood. Having a play around with my blog at the moment so may look a bit weird in the next few days.
Thanks Marc.
The only way to learn all the blog features is to play around with them :-)
The only place i've seen Mandarin Ducks recently was Bewl Water warren. Be great to get one at New Hythe sometime.
Mandarins are pretty sneaky Phil, make sure you check any trees overhanging the water :-)
The best is the Long-tailed Tit, excellent photos.
I`m with Bob. Super LTT shots, Warren.
What a wonderful variety of birds to see in one walk, Warren.
The only Mandarins I've seen lately have been tinned, in Sainsburys.
That is art!!!
Beautiful...
Hugs
Some great shots, which is becoming the norm now!! plus a couple of nice additions to the month, I'm struggling with Mandarin here at the moment.
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