Sunday 2 October 2016

After a cloudy morning, the afternoon slowly improved to give sunny spells.

A look through the Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods early on, only revealed BULLFINCH (40) for those resident, woodland patch species that are yet to be found. The lakes proved disappointing again.

A GREY HERON (41) joined the October list as it flew over the Ashes Lane Fields, where, along the drainage ditch there, a STONECHAT was seen, probably yesterdays birds that had relocated from Migrant Alley.

KESTREL (42) was added to the months list, the male was looking superb as it hunted around the greenhouse grounds in it's newly moulted plumage. Two BUZZARDS were the only other raptors seen this morning.

There were plenty of MEADOW PIPITS around Migrant Alley, some just passing through among the small numbers of HOUSE MARTINS and SWALLOWS, while others dropped into the sheep pasture. A pair of GREY WAGTAILS (43) were watched as the flew over heading for the Greenhouse Grounds.

There were two more additions to the months list this morning, BLACK HEADED GULL (44), a single one of which flew over, and MISTLE THRUSH (45) two of which were seen in a garden along Ashes Lane.

So the October list moves on to 45 species, a long way short of the record of 77, set in 2010, and still a considerable ask to get to the mean total for the previous 5 Octobers, which is 73.

2 comments:

Pete Woodruff said...

Nothing about the Stonechat to separate it from yesterdays bird then Warren.

Pity your month list isn't shaping up too well at the moment, and the gap in your mean totals is quite big isn't it, will be interesting to see if it picks up.

Warren Baker said...

Pete,
The stonechat was an adult male, suggests it was the same bird, it was only 200 meters from its original position :-)