Thursday 29 October 2015

Short lived sunny spells early this morning, were soon replaced by grey, overcast skies, when it remained warm for the time of year.

A pair of GREY WAGTAILS flew from the water intake area of the Greenhouse Grounds, where the SISKIN and GOLDFINCH flock had been joined once again by half a dozen LESSER REDPOLLS.


Siskin, early this morning


This female was enjoying a good preen  :-)

I watched a skein of 16 GREYLAG GEESE fly over the birdless pasture and paddcoks of Migrant Alley, flyovers from SKYLARK, BLACK HEADED GULL and HERRING GULL were also seen, plus a nice orderly line of 6 CORMORANTS.


3 of the 6 Cormorants that flew over

A walk across the Ashes lane Fields produced the long staying MEADOW PIPITS, maybe 4 - 6 birds being present, also 11 FIELDFARE flew low over ''Chacking'' all the while.

Once again the lakes were poor for wildfowl, the only visitor being a GREY HERON on the small lake, the MALLARDS had reduced to just 6 in number. The adjacent Scrubby Woods had the regular GOLDCREST, NUTHATCH, LONG TAILED TIT, BULLFINCH, SONGTHRUSH, 6 more Siskin, plus a BUZZARD that must have roosted there and overhead the male KESTREL was seen again.


This BLACKBIRD was feasting on the hawthorn berries, shame the light had gone by now


I made the walk back to my seat for a sky watch, but my hours vigil only produced a few REDWING and a MISTLETHRUSH for the day. The Siskin, Goldfinch and Redpolls had moved on now the workers were at the Greenhouse Grounds, but the female KESTREL had turned up.

3 comments:

Derek Faulkner said...

Very surprised in the paper today to see that the RSPB have added Meadow Pipit and Redwing to the "near extinction" list. Mind you, on my patch breeding pairs of Mipits in recent years have plummeted from 36 pairs to less than half a dozen.

Warren Baker said...

It's a downward spiral Derek,
Too many humans on the planet.

Derek Faulkner said...

Too many humans needing new houses and cheap food.