Friday 22 January 2016

Rain this morning turned heavier as the day progressed, making for a very dull and dreary day.

A short two hour patch walk, in a return to muddy conditions, did have its rewards today, the best being the first COOT (63) of the year being seen on the partly thawed main lake, a hard species to find for my patch! The species total for this January now gets promoted to 6th place out of the 15 recorded, and is just one species off the average tally for the previous 5 Januaries.

There was a SPARROWHAWK hunting around the Scrubby Woods, where a couple of BULLFINCHES were seen flying through, plus at least 4 GOLDCRESTS a TREECREEPER and a NUTHATCH were recorded.

Around 50-60 STARLINGS fed on the Ashes Lane Fields, along with a few FIELDFARE, REDWING, a MISTLETHRUSH and a couple of SONGTHRUSH, plus the regualr half dozen MEADOW PIPITS were still around.

A look through the Small Holding provided a few CHAFFINCH and GOLDFINCH, with them were 3 LESSER REDPOLL, all birds that were no doubt in the area attracted to my nearby garden feeders

A BUZZARD flew over the Pub Field, towards the Wet Woods, but no Kestrel was seen today, she was probably tucked away in the nest box at the Greenhouse Grounds  :-)

Just a few 'blog brighteners ' left to show now, hopefully we will get some sunshine soon so I can replenish the photo stock !


ROBIN, enjoying yesterdays sunshine.


Chaffinch, stealing the Redpolls seed!


This BLACKBIRD wasn't shy, it also wanted some of the Sunflower seeds.




2 comments:

Derek Faulkner said...

Yup, back to mud and water and cold, grey skies - roll on Spring. Mind you, if you read Greenie's blog, Sheppey is doing well for birds at the moment and I've seen them all and a few more.

Warren Baker said...

Just going off to look at Greenie's blog then Derek :-)