Thursday 16 January 2014

My patch visit today lingered up until around mid day, when some heavy squally showers started to move through, up until then the weather wasn't too bad, with some short sunny spells even occurring  :-)

The four and a half hour patch visit gave me a tally of 45 bird species, with some nice patch species being found, but still nothing new for the year list. The highlight for the visit came late on in the morning, when I watched a COMMON BUZZARD being mobbed by a PEREGRINE - not everyday you see that !  KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK were also seen up hunting, a four raptor species visit is good going here :-)

Two Little Owls called from the Small Holding, and another was seen over at the Greenhouse Copse, while the lakes today had a couple of dozen MALLARDS, only two MOORHEN, a COOT, a CORMORANT, a KINGFISHER and the MUTE SWAN pair, a third Mute Swan was seen flying over after I left the lake area, probably not one of the pair on the lake though.

Most of the regulars showed up as I walked through the Scrubby Woods, and then the Wet Woods, apart that is from Coal Tit and Greenfinch, they were however seen at my garden feeders this afternoon, so 47 species were actually recorded here today.

Speaking of my garden, I had not one but two SONGTHRUSH visit, they are a scarce species to visit my little wildlife reserve, and were the 22nd species this year to do so. I tried to get some shots of one of them, but in the poor light they didn't turn out too good, I had to dabble around at 1000 iso, and had to use some slow shutter speeds.

I'll post them up anyway, as they are they only photo's i've got left for the blog, those and this BLUE TIT effort - again with some poor light and slow shutter speeds  :-(
Up to eight Blue Tits feed on this fat feeder at same time
First thing this Songthrush did was to look up and check the ''Sprawk'' wasn't about!
Songthrush, a scarce visitor to my garden
Songthrush

8 comments:

Ken. said...

Warren.
You could say that your Song Thrushes are a bit like buses, you wait ages for one and 2 come along together, despit what you say about pics of them, I am not god at taking pics but I think your photo's are very good.
As for your garden feeder, I have one of those and my Blue Tits seem to love it.

Rohrerbot said...

That feeder is awesome!!! Such cool birds!

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Ken,
I think the Thrushes were probably a pair by the way they were chasing about :-)

Warren Baker said...

Blue Tits are everywhere here Chris, a very common bird, but you're right, they're still cool birds :-)

Marc Heath said...

Is it the weekend yet!!! nice background on those Song thrush shots

Alan Pavey said...

Nice Song Thrush, lovely light

Greenie said...

Warren ,
Many thanks for the info you posted on mine . Gave it a go ( wet morning ) and got as far as @adjust widths' , only to be told it wasn't possible on my template .
I think I will have to change templates , one day .

Warren Baker said...

Well at least you tried Greenie, plenty more ''wet mornings'' still to come I think, so you have something to keep you occupied :-)