Tuesday 2 September 2014

First thing this morning it was very dull and dreary, with heavy cloud cover and a slight mist. Eventually the cloud parted and some sunshine was enjoyed this afternoon.

A skein of 13 CANADA GEESE (57) flew over Ashes lane as I left the house this morning, a good start to the day  :-) My walk around Migrant Alley once again provided the migrants, with the 3 WHINCHATS still here, plus a YELLOW WAGTAIL that flew up from the sheep pasture. The Wooded Headland to the North of the paddocks had a flock of 8 LONG TAILED TITS (58) moving through it, but nothing much interesting was seen with them, just a few BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS and CHAFFINCHES.

As I entered the Ashes Lane Field, I scanned the fence line that runs above the drainage ditch and was surprised to see a BUZZARD (59) perched up, accompanied by a couple of CARRION CROWS and a WOODPIGEON, it isn't often the Buzzards perch up on my patch, nice to see though  :-)  The old shack on the other side of the field had a LITTLE OWL sat on it, giving me good views.

Over on the lakes today the Coot had gone missing again, but there was a GREY HERON (60) seen there, the 60th species for the month, nothing else but the regular MUTE SWAN family, MOORHEN and MALLARDS were with it though.

The adjacent Scrubby Woods was deathly quiet, a CHIFFCHAFF that sang there represented the only Warbler species seen on todays patch visit. Walking back through the Wet Woods I heard TREECREPER, NUTHATCH and GOLDCREST calling.

My sky watch from my seat over at Migrant Alley didn't add anything further to the months list, but LESSER BLACK BACKED, BLACK HEADED and HERRING GULLS were all seen going over, along with a steady passage of SWALLOWS and HOUSE MARTINS. SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL were also up hunting, but no Hobby today.

Tempted out by some warm Sunshine this afternoon, I decided to go and look for some Dragonflies over at the Greenhouse Grounds, I found Southern and Migrant Hawkers, plus a few Common Darters, and photographed a Small Copper Butterfly, the first seen for some weeks, but the best sighting was of a LESSER WHITETHROAT (61) that I saw feeding on the Blackberries, a pristine individual, and an absolutely cracking looking bird  :-)

Here's the Dragonfly images I took this afternoon, more Southern hawker photo's!!

The light was up and down, making the task more difficult than normal


The sun came out for a short time, but it mostly hid behind a large cloud,








1 comment:

Wilma said...

stunning. the first one and the last 2 are my favorites.