I went over and visited the lakes first thing, noting on the way that the Ashes Lane Fields were full of REDWING, FIELDFARE and STARLING, at least 50 of each were present, with those were 4 MISTLETHRUSH, plus on an adjacent field the 50-60 MEADOW PIPITS were present, however, a pair of displaying SPARROWHAWKS flew low over, putting everything to flight!
The lakes were still partially frozen, but on the few remaining patches of open water on the main lake the first Geese of the month were found, 4 GREYLAG GEESE (54) and 2 CANADA GEESE (55). Just the MUTE SWAN pair, 3 MALLARD pairs, 4 MOORHEN and the COOT were on the ornamental lake this morning.
TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, NUTHATCH, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT and BULLFINCH were all seen in the Scrubby Woods, but still no Siskin or Redpoll for the year yet!
The Greenhouse Grounds were heavily disturbed by a work crew today, only the female KESTREL was of any note there, but the adjacent Greenhouse Copse had a PHEASANT (56) strutting about the leaf litter, the first ive seen this month, and later, as I fruitlessly watched the skies over Migrant Alley, a LITTLE OWL was heard calling from there.
That just about completes the ''easy'' bird species that can be found here in February, anything else will be a bonus, but I would hope to get 65 species for the month, which is the average February total for the previous 5 years.....just 9 bonus species needed then!
I mentioned in an earlier post that I have had a regular SONGTHRUSH visiting my garden, but getting images was very difficult due to it being very wary, but yesterday afternoon I managed to get a few shots of it, not the best, as the bird gets a bit lost in the background, but hopefully i'll get better opportunities later in the month :-)
Songthrush
2 comments:
A nice set of photos Warren as you say its difficult to get close to some song thrushes. I too noted some fields full of fieldfares today.
Even harder to get near to Fieldfares Mike!
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