Monday 21 September 2015

Short lived glimpses of the sun, early this morning, soon disappeared, as cloud rolled in and showery rain arrived on a brisk SW wind.

My 4 hour visit was dominated by the sight and sound of geese, varying size skeins flew over at intervals, those being of 7, 31, 8, 33 and 65 GREYLAG GEESE, as well as 9, then 74 CANADA GEESE, there were also 7 Canada Geese on the main lake, where the drake MANDARIN DUCK was seen again.

Summer birds were not much in evidence, as is to be expected now, but 2 CHIFFCHAFFS were at the Greenhouse Grounds, with a lone BLACKCAP, plus 2 more Chiffchaffs were seen over in the Scrubby Woods. A lone YELLOW WAGTAIL flew over the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, but my star sighting for the visit was another STONECHAT that was associating with 7 MEADOW PIPITS along the drainage ditch fence line at the Ashes Lane Fields.

I managed a sky watch from my seat at Migrant Alley that lasted a little over an hour, this produced a GREY WAGTAIL, 7 SISKIN that dropped into the Greenhouse Grounds, a group of 3 MISTLETHRUSHES, 5 HERRING GULLS, 1 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, 2 SKYLARKS, plus a few more Meadow Pipits and the 3 regular raptor species - BUZZARD, SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL. Small numbers of SWALLOWS and HOUSE MARTINS trickled through the area, which by the afternoon had increased significantly, with the sky being full of them at times as I watched from my window at home, where I noted 3 Siskin at my garden feeders.

No chance with the camera today in the poor light. A chance then to show the Lapwing images I took at Bough Beech last Thursday  :-)







5 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Cracking Lapwing shots, surely one of our pretties birds with stunning coloured plumage.

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Marc,
They are stunning birds when the light hits them right ;-)

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Love lapwings, their peewiting was the soundtrack to my youth down on the farm (along with skylarks - stunning plumage too.

Cheers

DaveyMan

Kelly said...

....I'm glad I stopped in today, Warren! The lapwing photos are beautiful with wonderful detail. The bird has such a sweet expression. I've never seen the bird in person, and this is first time I've seen one up close in a photo. It's a beautiful expression...almost demure.

Warren Baker said...

Hi Kelly,
Aren't they great birds! :-), They make a wonderful sound too, especially when displaying. Unfortunately they are a rapidly diminishing species now, they cant live with our intensively farmed land :-(