Saturday 15 October 2016

After a couple of mediocre patch visits, today I undertook a full patch walk, in mostly cloudy mild conditions.

During the 4 hour visit I found 42 bird species, a little below par, with the likes of Coal Tit and Long Tailed not found, also Pheasant, which still remains missing from the months list. I did however watch the first CANADA GEESE (63) for October fly over the lakes, pity a Greylag wasn't among them!

TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, SISKIN, MISTLETHRUSH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and STOCK DOVE were the pick of what was seen around the wooded ares of my patch, while around the farmland, unsurprisingly, very little was found among the dwindling habitat, most of what was recorded was flying over, this included LINNET, SKYLARK, MEADOW PIPIT, REDWING, FIELDFARE and SONGTHRUSH of note.

A small flock of around a dozen GOLDFINCH were at the Greenhouse Grounds, where there was also a couple of GREEN WOODPECKERS, a few PIED WAGTAILS, plus the only Summer species seen today, that being a CHIFFCHAFF.

KESTREL and BUZZARD were the only raptors seen, HERRING GULL and BLACK HEADED GULL were the only Larids.

4 comments:

Derek Faulkner said...

No pheasants, come to the Swale NNR, we have hundreds, none of which of course we bother to record on our lists. We had a game shoot alongside the reserve on Wednesday, the Fox Hunt hunting foxes on Thursday, another game shoot today and wildfowlers in front of the reserve most days. All part of the countryside, and we just get on with it.

Warren Baker said...

cant be bothered with it all now Derek, pointless trying beat the rich and powerful, let them trash the countryside, i'll not be around to live with it. Just two more months of blogging and my efforts will be ended.

Derek Faulkner said...

They're not trashing it round here Warren, in fact we have a lot of excellent habitat that wouldn't be there if they didn't shoot and hunt, habitat that they planted themselves many years ago. Sure, one or two aspects of it get us down at times but I think you have to be positive and I think we gain more than we lose.

Warren Baker said...

Derek.
As I have said. They can shoot and hunt all they want to. I have no interest in it all anymore. I'll look after my garden birds, while they last, and concentrate on my photography.