Thursday 10 September 2015

There was wall to wall blue sky and warm sunshine today, with just a light NE breeze, a real bonus day weatherwise!

Summer species are getting thin on the ground now, only 4 CHIFFCHAFFS were seen this morning, two at the Greenhouse Grounds and 2 over at the Scrubby Woods, where the only BLACKCAPS for the visit were seen, with 3 feeding on Elder berries. The only other summer birds seen on todays visit were a dozen SWALLOWS and two HOUSE MARTINS over the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, plus a real goodie for the September list....a SWIFT (62), I don't often record Swifts in September, the median average last sighting date for them here is the 26 Aug.

SISKINS were again continually heard flying over, but not much else did, just a few HERRING GULLS and another MISTLETHRUSH. The three regular raptor species were all recorded again, those being KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD, the latter were seen soaring somewhere over my patch every time I looked up!

Nothing of note on the lakes today apart from a GREY HERON.

In the warm conditions, I checked out the sunny edge of the Wet Woods for Dragonflies and found a nice female Southern Hawker, plus, at least 3 Common Darters and 2 Migrant Hawkers.


I filled my boots with images of the Southern Hawker, this may well be my last chance this year to do so!

I haven't got many images of female Southern Hawkers, so this filed a bit of a gap for my records  :-)


This male Migrant Hawker also posed nicely, but was in a windy spot, making sharp images harder to get.



6 comments:

Derek Faulkner said...

Another cracking day coming up tomorrow Warren, a real bonus.

Warren Baker said...

Just need some visiting migrants now Derek.

Wilma said...

Great dragon images, Warren.

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Wilma x

Phil Barnett said...

On the subject of last Swifts - I seem to be seeing my last one quite a lot earlier that I used to. I remember in the 70's - 90's I'd reckon to see my last one about 20th September and I didn't regard a September Swift as being particularly special. I had them over the garden in October on a couple of occasions - October 14th Being the latest.

I haven't seen one in September, now for for several years and a September Swift, now DOES seem a bit special....could just be me though.

Warren Baker said...

Maybe our summers are getting worse Phil! I have just one record of an October Swift here :-)