Thursday 31 July 2014

This morning was dry, warm and sunny for the final patch visit of the month, which proved to be quite a good one.

My early walk around the paddocks and sheep pasture of Migrant Alley not only produced a fly over YELLOW WAGTAIL, but also the first TURTLE DOVE (71) of the month, which flew NE, probably the last one i'll see this year. KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK also flew over, flushing up the STARLING flock, they had decreased in number to only around 40 birds. A small party of SWIFTS moved through, and the daily movement of GREYLAG and CANADA GEESE was again observed.

Greylag Geese





Two female / immature MANDARIN DUCKS were on the main lake today, with a lone MALLARD and a GREY HERON. The ornamental lake only had the regular MUTE SWAN, COOT, MOORHEN and two more Mallard.

In the Scrubby Woods my first LONG TAILED TITS for a week were found, I counted 13 as they flew the gap from one Oak tree to the next, only 3 BLUE TITS were with them though. GOLDCREST and COAL TITS sang, BULLFINCH were seen well in a Hawthorn bush, and along with the BLACKCAP and CHIFFCHAFF, I saw a WHITETHROAT, obviously a migrant bird, as I don't see Whitethroats in the Scrubby Woods outside of the migration seasons. On the walk home I spotted a LITTLE OWL in an Oak tree of a large garden which lies next to the small holding.

The Turtle Dove seen today brings the months species list to a record breaking 71, two species better than the previous best effort for July. Four of those species were new for the 13 year combined July list, taking it to 93, surprisingly only one species behind the August and September combined tallies. The new species were, Mute Swan, Snipe, Red Kite, and the good old Barnacle Goose  :-)

I had a nearly day with the Brown Hawker Dragonfly, .........again, but managed a couple of acceptable shots of the male Southern Hawker   :-)

Southern Hawker



This ROBIN sat nicely in the sunshine, shame it was on barbed wire!




3 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Nice shots again today Warren. Found a male Southern Migrant Hawker today. Mega dragonfly for east Kent but my views were about 2 seconds before it went.

Warren Baker said...

Not seen that species at all Marc, even for two seconds !

The Hairy Birder said...

Acceptable shots Warren, I'd be absolutely thrilled to obtain such 'acceptable shots'! Cracking shots as always.

Cheers,

Seumus