Wednesday 6 January 2016

A few bright spells this morning soon disappeared as thicker cloud moved in, but at least it stayed dry and virtually windless.

I carried out another full patch walk, in some very muddy and wet conditions after yesterdays rain, finding 42 species during the four hours I was out, which is a little below par for a January day.

I added just one species to the year/months list, when  two skeins of GREYLAG GEESE (55) were seen flying over the Ashes Lane Field, one numbered 17, the other 38, pity there were no Canada Geese with them though! The half dozen or so MEADOW PIPITS were on the pasture, as I tried to put a number to them, a party of 30 FIELDFARE flew over, the most i've seen here for weeks!


Fly-over Greylag Geese ( not todays, this is an archive image!)

The Greenhouse Grounds only had a couple of LESSER REDPOLL, plus the female KESTREL of note and the adjacent sheep pasture and paddocks of Migrant Alley had a couple of LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, along with a dozen HERRING GULLS, but only 4 BLACK HEADED GULLS today.

The Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods turned up all the scarcer woodland species, LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT, BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, JAY, STOCK DOVE, GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS, the latter of which was drumming loudly.

Only a CORMORANT and a GREY HERON visited the usual MALLARDS and MOORHENS on the lakes, fingers crossed for a visiting duck species this month, or maybe a Coot  :-)

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