Wednesday 17 October 2012

After a bright-ish start to this afternoon, the rain moved in about three-thirty, putting an end to a very quiet 90 minutes on patch, - where have all the birds gone - not just the summer ones either!
A view across the Tree Nursery, with the Wet Woods in the back ground

A walk through the above Tree Nursery was had first off, it always looks so good for a passage migrant lurking among the shrubs and vegetation, but today not a thing was seen here apart from a lone MEADOW PIPIT which flew up and headed over to the Pub Field, which i went and scanned, finding at least another 20 Meadow Pipit out on the harrowed stubbles.

After the Pub Field I went to Migrant Alley, ever hopeful of a late Wheatear or maybe my first Stonechat of the year, alas no such goodies were found, but 2 GOLDFINCH were among 18 LINNETS that were feeding on Dandelion heads in one of the paddocks.

A sky watch from my usual seat for twenty minutes was good for HERRING GULLS and fewer BLACK HEADED GULLS, but just one PIED WAGTAIL was seen with those. A last ditch attempt at finding a new species for the month was had with a walk through the Greenhouse Grounds, where a KESTREL sat up on the rooves, but again it proved a frustrating time, the dozens of wrens usual seen here were down to two individuals, it was the same for the DUNNOCKS and BLACKBIRDS, things seem to be stuck in that gap that happens between the summer birds leaving and the winter birds arriving  :-)  Things will change as time ticks on though.......hiopefully !
Immature Gull, probably Herring
PLEASE NOTE: the next post will be on Friday evening  :-)

7 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

The translucent feathers on the trailing edge tell that's deffo a Herring Gull Warren

Cheers

Davo

Greenie said...

Warren ,
Certainly wouldn't argue re. shortage of birds at the moment .
Re. the RA with the white spots , as Deano says it is a recognised but unnamed abberation in the species . I hadn't noticed it before , but I have photographed a couple of similar specimens in the past , also ones with broken orange band too .

Marc Heath said...

Some excellent habitat there Warren, plenty of places for a goodie to hide.

Rohrerbot said...

I take it migration is almost done? Hopefully some more will come your way. We'll see you back on Friday. Hope you are well.

Jason K said...

Things are just as dead up here in Worcestershire at the mo too Warren!

ShySongbird said...

I don't know where all the birds are but it's definitely not here! You and Greenie have had me looking through all my old Red Admiral photos but no aberrations noticed on mine. Not sure if I have said before but that is a lovely header photo and of course it's my favourite butterfly :-)

Hope all is well with you and yours.

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
I would tend to say the same nowadays, where are the birds gone until I found many today and this week! We still even have meadow pipit around and quite a lot. Looks like some of them are staying around just as purple sandpipers and golden plover!! Strange migration pattern these days!