Some small chinks of blue appeared in the sky early this morning, allowing a few short lived sunny spells, but it soon clouded over, making for a mostly sunless patch visit today.
Without the sun, the bird life seemed to go back into hiding again, the four hour visit produced only 44 species, but I suppose that's about average for this time of year. It was noticeable that there were fewer SWIFTS in the sky this morning, surely they haven't started on their way back to Africa already! The other summer migrants here, WHITETHROAT, BLACKCAP, SWALLOW and CHIFFCHAFF all showed well this morning, giving occasional bursts of song too as I walked the bean fields, where YELLOWHAMMER and SKYLARK were singing, there was no sign of the Lesser Whitethroat at the Wooded Headland today though.
My half hour stop at my sky watching seat at Migrant Alley didn't get me any new species for the month, I only need to find two more to equal the best June tally, but just 4 days to find them now :-) I did see a couple of HERRING GULLS, a single LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL and a pair of MALLARD fly over, plus the usual three raptor species of KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and COMMON BUZZARD.
A visit to the Small Holding, Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods didn't yield any more new breeding species for this year, but TREECREEPER, COAL TIT, GOLDCREST, WREN, ROBIN, BLUE and GREAT TIT were all dashing about with food for their respective fledged young. A LITTLE OWL called from the Small Holding, one of three pairs on my patch, surely they will have bred and the young be heard soon ?
A mix a photo's for todays post, the first three were taken this morning, and the NUTHATCH from my garden this afternoon the rest are from yesterday :-)
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| Common Whitethroat, this is one of the pair from the Greenhouse Grounds |
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| Goldcrest, this was singing from my garden boundary as I left this morning |
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| Goldcrest |
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| Nuthatch, one of two that have returned to my garden now they have finished breeding |
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| White-legged Damselfly |
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| Common Blue Damselfly, female |
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| Large Skipper |
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| Large Skipper |
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| Large Skipper |
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| Large Skipper |
2 comments:
Those Skipper shots are certainly quality. Lovely sharpness and detail.
Thanks marc,
The extension tube is worth the money I paid, the nice light helps a bit as well :-)
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