Overcast, windy and cooler this morning for my patch visit, but it turned bright and very warm again by midday.
Once again it was very subdued out there, I visited the Greenhouse Grounds and Migrant Alley early on, finding much the same as yesterday, however the 8 GREYLAG GEESE on the sheep pasture had been joined by 5 CANADA GEESE, and more notably 3 LAPWING were seen on one of the paddocks, very nice to have them here in July :-) LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL and HERRING GULL flew over, also in the sky, numbers of SWIFTS had increased on yesterdays visit, at least 30 wheeled around for a while with the SWALLOWS.
By 08:30hrs I made my way through the Small Holding and Wet Woods, where the boundary that they share was a mass of Tits, LONG TAILED, BLUE and GREAT TITS all made there way along the edge of the Woods.
Ending up at the Scrubby Woods and Lakes I noted BULLFINCH that wasn't seen yesterday, when at least 4 were seen and heard, COAL TIT, TREECREEPER, and GOLDCREST, were heard calling too, and the 20+ strong of GOLDFINCH were seen again on the thistle heads, no Siskin today though.
Two MALLARD, the COOT family and 5 MOORHENS were on the Ornamental lake, but the other two lakes were devoid of any birds this morning. The sun was just breaking through the clouds as I was going to leave, all too late really, I did get a couple of Damsel photo's though.
On the walk back home, I went through the Ashes lane Field, where an adult KESTREL was seen up hunting, and a presumed young one was seen perched on the Greenhouses. Another quite bird day, as is typical of July :-)
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| White-legged Damselfly |
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| White-legged Damselfly |
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| Common Blue Damselfly |
Below are the shots of the new fledged HOUSE SPARROWS that were brought into my garden by the female bird yesterday, they spent most of the time dozing in the sunshine. Today they were more active, being fed by both parents, the Bullfinch pair were back in as well, on the favoured Herb Robert seed :-)
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| Juv. House Sparrow |
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| Juv. House Sparrow |
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| Juv. House Sparrow and Sibling |
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| Juv. House Sparrow and Sibling |
3 comments:
A trick of the light or is it unusual for White legged to show a bright red pterostigma?
Great shots of the damsel, and the House Sparrow chicks are gorgeously gormless little fluffballs :)
Marc, to me the pterostigmas (pterostigmata?) look sort of bright brown, and similar to those on my own pics of male WLD...
Marc, Marianne,
I looked at the pterostigma and thought it a little redder than usual, but put it down to the strong light. Had a look for more like it today (22nd) but couldn't even find a W L Damsel!! :-)
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