The Greenhouse Grounds had a work crew using brush cutters, who were already working away when I arrived at 06:30hrs, an horrendous noise! Needless to say not a single bird was seen in the vicinity! I had a circuit of Migrant Alley, where the noise of the brush cutters drifted annoying across the fields, little was seen here either, except for a very nice HOBBY that came dashing through at head height, the only raptor seen today.
I headed for the Ashes Lane Fields, where I found a WHEATEAR on the fence line that runs along the drainage ditch, always an exciting find on my patch, but this was the only bird present!
Above: The Ashes Lane Fields All green, all tidy, all sterile, apart from the bit of vegetation that runs along the drainage ditch and fence line, but even this is on borrowed time, as now tis the '' season of tidying up''
I walked the short distance to the adjacent Pub Field, hoping something might be on the now cropped and harrowed field, but nothing except WOODPIGEONS were seen.
Above: The Pub Field.......all but Empty
Next I visited the lakes and Scrubby Woods, where I did find some birds, including NUTHATCH, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, COAL TIT, JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, and GREEN WOODPECKER, however there were very few BLACKCAPS and CHIFFCHAFF found, seems more things had left my patch than arrived this morning!
On the lakes a GREY HERON fished, the only bird of note seen there. I made my way home through the Small Holding, where I heard a LITTLE OWL call repeatedly, but failed to see its hiding place!
I was going to have an afternoon walk out across the fields and paddocks of Migrant Alley this afternoon, but I could still hear the brush cutters going at 15:00hrs, so gave it a miss. Instead I gave my feeders a good clean, and set up some new perches, ready for the Autumn winter photography sessions :-)
Hopefully, relative peace and quiet will return to my patch for the last day of August, I still need just one more species to reach the average number of species seen over the previous 5 Augusts.
A few photo's to brighten the blog post, these are the rest of the Southern Hawker images I got on Friday.
4 comments:
The brush cutters rule OK!!
As for the head height Hobby WOW. Not an easy one to come by in our area, though this summer has produced some guarantee of one north of me.
It's funny how a few miles can make a difference. You hardly got any migrants when over here in East Peckham we had Yellow Wags flying over, a very nice Osprey over the new gravel pit and best of all - a Wryneck in the scrub.
Pete,
Hobbies are fantastic little raptors, they always make the visit worth while :-)
Andy,
with all the noise going on here today, I would have even missed a flock of calling geese flying over! :-(
The scrubby areas around the greenhouses will have taken another hit, reducing still further my chances of finding drop in migrants.
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