Thursday 14 January 2016

It was again a bright start to the morning, but by 09:30hrs cloud rolled in, giving a few light showers by the afternoon, when the wind got up, making it feel chilly.

A four and a half hour full patch walk today, only yielded 40 species, 3 or 4 off what I would of expected, but there was a lot of disturbance from different landowners, tidying their plots, ever hopeful of selling them for housing!

The best of what was seen today was ;  A pair of YELLOWHAMMERS in the rough area of grassland between the Greenhouse Copse and the Greenhouse Grounds, the latter had a few SISKIN and LESSER REDPOLL in the Alders, but a SPARROWHAWK had been through minutes earlier, so not much else was about! A pair of BUZZARDS over the Small Holding were the only other raptors seen today.


This Songthrush allowed reasonably close approach, but it wouldn't shift into the sunlight for me, the frustrations of bird photography!

HERRING GULL and BLACK HEADED GULL, plus a CORMORANT all flew over, but the skies were empty for the most part. A gathering of 300+ STARLINGS on a field just off Ashes Lane had a few FIELDFARE among them, plus a MISTLETHRUSH and a couple of SONGTHRUSHES, but no Redwings were seen.

Nothing of note was on the lakes, unsurprising as the chainsaw was going nearby again, the Scrubby Woods and Wet Woods were missing Long Tailed Tit and Stock Dove, but GOLDREST, COAL TIT, NUTHATCH, TREECREEPER, BULLFINCH, JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and GREEN WOODPECKER were all found, along with the common regulars. The Ashes Lane Fields were again being frequented by the  half dozen or so MEADOW PIPITS, but no sign of that hoped for Snipe along the drainage ditch!


A DUNNOCK posed nicely, as they often do, obligingly it did sit in the sunlight  :-)





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