Another dull and overcast afternoon, but I had a pleasant enough 90 minute walk through the Small Holding, Wet Woods and then on to the lakes. Amongst the flock of GREENFINCH and CHAFFINCH in the Small holding was a TREECREEPER, and on the adjacent large lawn there were 3 GREEN WOODPECKERS, one's missing! I scanned around the area for my first Little Owl of the year, as this is a good place to find them, but they dont seem to be very active this month, or vocal - frustratingly!
In the Wet Woods, a MISTLE THRUSH was singing, and another gave its rattling call, a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER also called, and at least ten FIELDFARE flew over, the usual GREAT TITS made various calls, and another Treecreeper was seen.
Over on the lakes I was pleased to see the LITTLE GREBE again, plus the two COOTS, which amazingly ( for these lakes) has been joined by a third! Three is the peak count for Coot on my patch, it was also achieved in March last year :-) 4 pairs of MALLARD were found, and 6 MOORHENS, which were showing signs of pairing up. A short look around the surrounding Scrubby Woods was not all that exciting, a party of four LONG TAILED TITS with two GOLDCREST and my third Treecreeper of the afternoon was as good as it got.
I walked back home via the Tree Nursery, where both SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL were encountered, a SONGTHRUSH was flushed from one of the rows of shrubs as I looked for a Snipe, and the usual BLACKBIRDS, WRENS plus a few DUNNOCKS were seen, a flyover YELLOWHAMMER was heard, and two BLACK HEADED GULLS flew over. A peak through the boundary hedgerow at the Pub Field showed that it was completely empty. Just as I left, four GREY LAG GEESE went over, headed north.
Not a very enthralling post today, and no photo's left to brighten the page :-( roll on the weekend!
6 comments:
Good news on the Coots, Warren, maybe you will get to the 'Oh, it's only a Coot' stage in a year or two ;-)
Three Treecreeper sightings in one afternoon's visit sounds good to me.
Songbird,
The lakes would have to change in their make-up to hold anything but Mallard and Moorhen. More aquatic plants are needed, but with the big fish in the lakes, it never gets established.
Sometimes a walk doesn't require the camera. A stroll is nice without all the equipment along.
Hopefully a bit of sun forecast for the weekend. My camera will be excited about that I hope!!
I actually managed something different today, Warren. Now that`s a rarity in itself ;-)
A ninety minute walk would do me nicely Warren, but hoping for another of those 'escape days' again soon....the sooner the better.
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