Wednesday 7 December 2016

After day long dense fog yesterday, in which a short patch walked predictably turned out hopeless for finding the birds, today was much kinder, with mild conditions, little wind and even some brightness for a while.

I headed off for the lakes first thing, noting a SPARROWHAWK flying low over the Small holding as I passed through, which put up small numbers of FIELDFARE.

The lakes had now thawed out, but as usual just MALLARDS and MOORHENS were present, I wonder if the Goosander will make their almost annual visit this year ? The overwintering CHIFFCHAFF was again seen around the edge of the main lake, where a party of 4 BULLFINCH were also seen.

A walk through the adjacent Scrubby Woods was good for TREECREEPER, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST and the more common regular species, but a Woodcock still eludes me for the years list.

I headed off over to the Greenhouse Grounds, just SKYLARK was of any note as I crossed the Ashes Lane Fields, but at the Greenhouse grounds a bit of interest was had - even excitement, when despite the work crew being present, 8 MEADOW PIPITS were seen, plus a BUZZARD that was sitting on the greenhouse roof, usurping the female Kestrel, which was nowhere to be seen today, the excitement came however, when the Buzzard took off, alighting in a nearby hedge, in doing so putting up 3 SNIPE (48) a good species for the December list, indeed a good species any month on my patch!


I got a very distant shot of the Buzzard  :-)

3 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Not a bad outing Warren. Nice to get Snipe. With some harsh weather hopefully soon, maybe a Jack Snipe may make it to yours. Put up my first selection of shots of the year on my blog. There not too shabby.

Marc Heath said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Warren Baker said...

Harsh weather Marc ? Whats that!