Friday 1 July 2016

Another woeful Summers day, with grey skies, intermittent drizzle and a moderate breeze.

Although not the best conditions for a full patch walk, I always like to carry one out on the first day of the new month, here's the bird species I recorded during the walk, in order of appearance...........

GREENFINCH, COLLARED DOVE, WOODPIGEON, BLUE TIT, CARRION CROW, BLACKCAP, DUNNOCK, GOLDFINCH, JACKDAW, WREN and CHAFFINCH were noted as I walked the short distance along Ashes lane to the Greenhouse Grounds, where GOLDREST, PIED WAGTAIL, WHITETHROAT, ROBIN, BLACKBIRD and KESTREL all joined the list. A circuit of Migrant Alley in a blowing drizzle was not very productive, but STARLING, ROOK, and SWALLOW were all added.

The Greenhouse Copse was walked through, but just MAGPIE and CHIFFCHAFF were added to the July list. A LINNET flew over calling as I made my way to High House Lane and Bustard Hill, but again, little was noted, just HOUSE SPARROW and both GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER.

The Small Holding added another couple of species, those being NUTHATCH and SONGTHRUSH, then the walk through the Wet Woods gave me MOORHEN, TREECREEPER and JAY for the months tally.

Next up was the lakes, which had MALLARD, CANADA GOOSE and GREY HERON present, then onto the Scrubby Woods which yielded STOCK DOVE, PHEASANT, GREAT TIT and BULLFINCH.

I made my way over to the Ashes Lane Fields and Pub Field, but only added flyover species to the days list, those being HERRING GULL, BUZZARD and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL.

Finishing my walk with a short sky watch from my seat at Migrant Alley I added SWIFT and lastly SKYLARK to the July bird list, bringing the total to a reasonable 43 species.

A long way to go then to catch the best July total of 71 species, which was achieved in 2014, even the 66 required to meet the previous 5 years mean average tally looks a bit daunting !

More images from Wales to brighten the post!


Recently fledged Redstart



The similar Robin fledgling


7 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Not a bad start to the month Warren, love the juvenile Redstart shots, something down here I don't think I will ever see.

Derek Faulkner said...

Felt like I was walking round the reserve in March this morning, given the dire weather conditions. This day last year it was 37 degrees, which I doubt you'd like either - and it's all set to continue for the foreseeable future.

Warren Baker said...

Marc,
The only Redstarts here are the odd one on passage :-(

Warren Baker said...

Derek,
As I always said, i'm not one for extreme weather of any kind. This summer is just crap though, i'll agree with you on that!! :-)

Derek Faulkner said...

Yep, straight down the middle - constant crap!

Pete Woodruff said...

Interesting and excellent Redstart/Robin images Warren, typical of lookalike species, easily separable on closer study, but on a cursory glance not so.

As for the weather....SHITE.

Warren Baker said...

Pete,

Surely we will see a settle spell soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!