Friday 31 October 2014

High, wispy cloud made for some very hazy brightness for the last patch visit of October, later in the morning the cloud burnt off and it became a lovely warm late summers day, Autumn day!

The four and a half hour full patch walk provided a good tally of 46 bird species, but alas, none were new for the month, so this Octobers species tally finishes on 74, which is the joint second best October out of the 13 years :-)

Bird of the day was the LITTLE GREBE, which I first saw on the 28th, I relocated it on the main lake, but I didn't find it on my two previous visits, just goes to show how unobtrusive these birds are! A KINGFISHER was seen on the ornamental lake, along with 10 MALLARDS, the MUTE SWAN family and 8 MOORHENS, while a GREY HERON was seen fishing at the small lake.

Just about all the woodland species turned out today, but in very low numbers, LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT, GOLDCREST, NUTHATCH, TREECREEPER, BULLFINCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GREEN WOODPECKER, JAY and MISTLETHRUSH being the pick of them.

I found the LITTLE OWL in the Greenhouse Copse, before I settled down for a sky watch from my seat at Migrant Alley, which was quite interesting today, as I saw two flocks of FIELDFARE go over, one of 20 birds and another of at least 60 birds, but not a single call was heard from any! A couple of single YELLOWHAMMERS called as they flew over, as did a couple of MEADOW PIPITS, SKYLARKS ''trilled'' over the sheep pasture and a SISKIN called loudly as it flew low over, a party of 4 Bullfinch flying past was a nice sight. The three local raptor species were all found, those being KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD.

So at the end of another month, 74 species were found, only 3 behind the record October tally of 77, two of those species were new to the 13 year combined October list, which now stands at 99, the Little Grebe and of course the Brent Geese, which were a patch tick, taking the year list to 108 and the patch list to 140  :-)

The only photo's I took were of this Long Tailed Tit........






4 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Like the top shot, looks like an X Factor audition, and probably better and in tune than most of the singers. A good total Warren for the month.

Warren Baker said...

X factor...whats that then Marc ? :-)

Pete Woodruff said...

Warren....I can honestly say, I never noted the Long-tailed Tit had an orange coloured 'eyebrow' before.

Have I not been paying full attention to this birds detail??

Warren Baker said...

Pete, I must admit, before I started photographing birds, I hadn't noticed either!