Monday 25 May 2015

Desperate to add something to the May list, I tried an early morning sky watch, as the most likely addition to the months list now will be a fly over, so at a little after 06:00hrs I headed off over to my seat at Migrant Alley, initially in some sunshine, but before 07:30hrs the cloud encroached and the wind got up a bit, making for a chilly sit.

In the four and half hours I sat and watched, I recorded the following species, either flying over, or around the immediate area, which included the Greenhouse Grounds, Greenhouse Copse, plus the sheep pasture and horse paddocks of Migrant Alley......................

WREN, ROBIN, DUNNOCK, WOODPIGEON, PIED WAGTAIL, BLACKBIRD, GREAT TIT, SONGTHRUSH, WHITETHROAT, BLACKCAP, SWALLOW, SWIFT, KESTREL, STARLING, GREEN WOODPECKER, BLUE TIT, HERRING GULL, CARRION CROW, ROOK, LINNET, JACKDAW, GREENFINCH, PHEASANT, MAGPIE, CHAFFINCH, LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, SKYLARK, CHIFFCHAFF, STOCK DOVE, BUZZARD, GOLDFINCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, CUCKOO ( all be it a bit distant!) COLLARED DOVE, SPARROWHAWK, HOUSE SPARROW and lastly CANADA GOOSE,  that's 37 species, but not a thing for the May list, which at 66 species is the joint 8th worse May total so far and still 8 behind last years record May tally.

I may have added 7-10 more species to the days list by walking the woods and visiting the lakes, if time had permitted, but I had things to do in preparation for my Wales holiday that I leave for on Saturday, (that will loose me two more days of the month in which to increase the May list!)

Later this afternoon, I tried again to get some images of the Starlings feeding their young at my garden feeding station, but the light was so poor, I didn't get the shutter speed neccassry to catch the action as I would want, and ended up deleting what I took, maybe i'll get another chance tomorrow if it brightens up.

I got a few images to post as I waited for the Starlings to visit, nothing exciting though!

 This Woodpigeon sat on the feeding log, just as a 30 second sunny interval appeared  :-)

One of the Magpie pair kept an eye on ''its'' food chasing off any would be thieves ;-)

This is the only Starling image I kept, that's not my thumb over the lens in the bottom corner, its the head a flower!

1 comment:

Marc Heath said...

Not a bad list Warren, up close the Woodpigeon is a smart looking bird. Nicely captured detail in that shot.