Sunday 15 January 2012

Another cracking winters morning for my full patch walk today, with a hard frost, little wind and a clear blue sky, thats two nice mornings in a row now:-)

Another day dawns at Pittswood
Again I was out for about 3 and a half hours, finding one less species than yesterday, however this was compensated somewhat by finding a few more birds around, especially the BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS, LONG TAILED TITS, GOLDFINCH, and GREENFINCH, of which a nice flock of 17 dropped down into a large Lime tree over in the College Grounds. Some regularly seen species didn't turn up, such as Pheasant, Skylark, Bullfinch, plus any kind of Goose, also the winter thrushes, Fieldfare and Redwing are avoiding my patch still.

Again these omissions to the daylist were handsomely compensated for by the finding of 3 new species for the year list, the first being a COMMON GULL (58) that flew over the Greenhouse Complex, they are scarce enough here, but  GREAT BLACK BACKED GULL  are even more scarce, one flew over just minutes before the Common Gull,  - not often I see the two in one visit  :-)

I left the Greenhouse Grounds and associated copse, but not before finding a TREECREEPER, and a departing roost of SONGTHRUSHES. The walk across Migrant Alley was still and frosty, and not much bird activity was seen, but the wooded headland found to the north of it was noteworthy for two YELLOWHAMMER calling from an Ash tree there.

Onto the College Grounds, where activity was plenty, and despite flushing up a SPARROWWHAWK, which flew off with its kill, the likes of Goldfinch, Greeninch, CHAFFINCH, SISKIN, singing COAL TIT, singing GOLDCREST another Treecreeper, plus GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER all made themselves obvious. I left the area via adjacent the sports pitch, and went  back across Migrant Alley, where I entered the Pub Filed, here the second new species for the year was seen, two LAPWING (59) were found out on the grass with 43 BLACK HEADED GULLS.

I headed home for a quick snack and drink, by way of the Tree Nursery, which was not very good today, but a KESTREL was seen flying low on its way the the Greenhouse Complex, it's favoured hunting ground, and a BUZZARD flew low over heading south.

I left the lakes till last today, as I knew they would be frozen over, and so they were, which limits the chance of finding waterfowl somewhat, although a few MALLARD and MOORHEN tucked themselves into the overhanging branches. The surrounding Scrubby Woods, were good for adding the likes of NUTHATCH, MISTLE THRUSH, and JAY, to the days list. 43 Lapwing flew over in disarray, before gathering again and flying off North, it was no doubt these birds that I found at the later end of my walk feeding in a Wheat field just off Ashes Lane, I counted over 100, with also, what proved to be the star birds of the day - no fewer than 8 GOLDEN PLOVER! (60) a very rare sight indeed to have even one on the ground at my patch  :-)

The field of Lapwing, with one Golden Plover ( I have marked it for you !! )

Photo opportunities were limited, and apart from the above long range Golden Plover, I only managed to snap a DUNNOCK again, but this afternoon I took a few garden bird photo's, i'll put some up and save the rest for tomorrow  :-)

Dunnock
Long Tailed Tits, Pity about the bars!
Long Taile Tit - free from 'jail' !
Again. Long Tailed Tit


12 comments:

Marianne said...

Good to see the list growing! Nice photos too, the Long-tails are gorgeous.

Warren Baker said...

Thanks Marianne,
You cant go wrong with a nice LT Tit Photo :-)

Greenie said...

Warren ,
Birding must be a doddle on your patch , being as they are all labelled .
That certainly was a cracking Winter's day .

Unknown said...

Lovely sunrise image an love the Long Tail Tits.

Marc Heath said...

Cheers for the info Warren, I have downloaded Google chrome and all seems to be working well at the moment. What a lovely day weather wise. Back to the real world tomorrow though!

Warren Baker said...

Thanks Anthony. Great to see the sun again 'aint it!!

Warren Baker said...

Glad it worked for you Marc.
Yea back to the grind tomorrow :-(

Jason K said...

What a great day Warren...Golden Plover and Common Gull. Although your Golden Plover photo does remind me a bit of one of those 'spot the ball' pictures you get in the newspapers!

;-)

Anonymous said...

You`ve pulled a few back today, Warren. Can`t be having that now, can we ?

Mike H said...

Another good day for you and the LTT shots are great.

Rohrerbot said...

Honestly, the bars make that pic pop! I don't know why but the birds look like they're caged or caught in the proverbial cookie jar. Haha....so I've had 3 days off and I've been doing what you are doing which is hiking and birding. I had a day like you did where I didn't see much of anything, but I snapped a shot of a beautiful barn owl! It was very close to it. But then for the rest of the day, there wasn't anything! We've had some cloudy weather here and everything seems to hide. Today I got a Chestnut Sided Warbler which is a rare find and had a bit more luck sighting things so it made up for yesterday. I just find it fascinating how one day can be so different from the next. Your pictures are really inspiring. Thank you for sharing them.

Alan Pavey said...

That was a good visit Warren, great to pick up Golden Plover nice and early in the year, great pics too :-)