No let up in the weather situation, pulses of rain swept in on a strong and cold SE wind throughout my 3 hour full patch walk this morning, in fact it rained all day :-(
Of course, in those conditions there was little hope of finding an early spring Migrant, but some excitement was had when my first MANDARIN DUCKS (76,59) of the year were seen dabbling about on the ever growing pools of water in the Wet Woods, a pair has bred here in the last two springs, so I hope they can make it three :-)
On the Lakes there were two pairs of MALLARD, 7 CANADA GEESE and 4 MOORHENS, but for the second visit in a row the Coot pair were not found, maybe they have left after all :-(
LONG TAILED TIT, BULLFINCH and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER were seen in the scrubby Woods, but the likes of Coal Tit, Treecreeper, Nuthatch and Goldcrest all went unrecorded toady.
I got very wet walking over to the College Grounds, via Migrant Alley, where on the sheep pasture about 40 FIELDFARE were seen, as well as around 150 BLACK HEADED GULLS and 2 COMMON GULLS, a flyover LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL completed the gull sightings for the morning, although if I had tried a bit harder I may just have found the Med Gulls in amongst the Black Headed Gulls, but I was getting soaked by wind lashed rain at the time!
The College Grounds at least gave me a glimpse of a KINGFISHER to put some brightness my way, but nothing else was seen here of note, on the way back across Migrant Alley I saw one the KESTREL pair over on the apex of one of the Green houses, looking much less bedraggled than me :-) That brought up a very disappointing 36 species for the day list, when 45 -50 would have been nearer to the average for mid March.
No chance with my Camera today, my blog folder is empty too :-(
2 comments:
....You never give in though and good for you that you don't.
Worried about no camera today to add to the empty blog folder....this is serious!
Have a good weekend Warren.
Hi Warren :-) Well done on the Mandarins, we don't get them in this area so I've never seen one at all. I hope the Coots show up again, maybe they were hiding from the weather ;-) We had heavy rain most of the day although the sun came out briefly during the afternoon giving some brief hope which was rapidly dashed...
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