Monday 10 September 2012

The fine sunny weather came to an end today, my afternoon patch visit was undertaken in cool and blustery conditions, with just the odd glimpse of brightness.

I spent two hours out, wandering the fields and paddocks of Migrant Alley, plus a walk through the Tree Nursery then crossing the Pub Field finally ending up with a last look at the Greenhouse Grounds. It wasn't particularly exciting though, only one warbler species was seen, that was a CHIFFCHAFF moving along the boundary hedgerow at the Greenhouse Grounds with a dozen LONG TAILED TITS.

Migrant Alley had a few SWALLOWS feeding over the sheep pasture, plus a nice flock of 30-40 LINNETS, with the odd GOLDFINCH amongst them, all feeding on one of the rougher paddocks, nice to have them back after not seeing them all weekend :-)  A couple of small groups of HOUSE MARTINS went through on passage, and a single YELLOW WAGTAIL was just about heard calling above the wind as it flew over.

The Pub Field had 9 HERRING GULL and a BLACK HEADED GULL on it plus a few Feral Pigeons, but I dont record those :-)  Crossing the Tree Nursery I saw two GREEN WOODPECKERS and a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, three JAYS were squawking from an Oak tree, a hopeful scan of the fence line there only produced four MAGPIES.

I ended up back at the Greenhouse Grounds, and looked over the raspberry dump, which had been topped up, a short wait there revealed around 8 WRENS, 4 DUNNOCKS, 2 ROBINS and 2 BLACKBIRDS only. The only raptors seen today were the KESTREL and a hunting SPARROWHAWK.

So nothing new for the months list today, which is on 65 putting it in 6th place out of 11, and still 13 behind the best September tally set back in 2009. I still need the likes of Yellowhammer this month, but I'll be lucky to find the hoped for Turtle Dove now, or the Swift. Meadow Pipit should show at some point, and I might just get a flyover Sand Martin still. Lapwing, Common Gull, or one of the local Peregrines may be seen going over, all of which will be needed just to achieve the mean average species total for the last 5 Septembers, which is 73 species. The challenge is on!
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I took a few photo's of the Long Tailed Tits as they moved through the hedge, but it was a bit dark and dim in there! The Chiffchaff photo's are from the Weekend.
Long Tailed Tit
Long Tailed Tit
Long Tailed Tit
Chiffchaff - Shame about the Barbed wire in shot   :-(
Chiffchaff

7 comments:

ShySongbird said...

Hi Warren, lovely photos as always. I haven't caught an LTT on camera for quite a while apart from some rubbish photos that were instantly deleted.

The weather has changed here too, definitely feeling more like Autumn now.

Well done on the Shoveller on yesterday's post...an excellent find. I loved the Kestrel photos on Saturday's post too...still struggling to keep up with blogging, 'real' life keeps getting in the way :-(

Marc Heath said...

Thats a cracking Chiff shot, very nice composition.

Warren Baker said...

Hi Songbird,
I know what you mean ''life'' gets in the way, things happen and blogs have to take a back seat :-(

Warren Baker said...

Hi Marc,
Thanks, There was some lovely light that morning :-)

Jason K said...

Things have gone a bit quiet here too Warren

Chris said...

Wow these long-tailed ladies are beautiful Warren and the chiffchaff too. Still really stormy over here...

Rohrerbot said...

Love those birds. I can't bring myself to write "tit" with love. It sounds so wrong:) But they are such amazing little birds. I can't wait for the cooler weather to get here. Very exciting! It was rainy here again today.