Saturday 2 June 2012

The first full patch walk of June was a thoroughly miserable affair, low cloud and a persistent drizzle fell throughout the 4 hour visit, making it difficult to find any of the fledged young that must be out there! In fact it was difficult to find many birds at all, I struggled to find 42 species, a far lower day list than can be expected at this time of year.

I at least added a few more of the regulars to the May list, over at the Lakes MALLARD (45) and COOT (46) were seen, of which the adult birds of the latter were feeding a now well grown youngster each. In the nearby Scrubby Woods the NUTHATCH (47) family were all feeding in the same Oak, there were at least 3 youngsters, it was also good to hear a TURTLE DOVE ''purring'' loudly despite the poor weather.

A YELLOWHAMMER (48) was heard singing in the Tree Nursery, lets hope it stays around and attracts a mate, while over at the College Grounds both SPOTTED FLYCATCHER (49) and BULLFINCH (50) were added to the May list, bringing it up to the 50 mark.

Not much else was noted, the only raptor seen was one of the local KESTRELS, while flyovers were only represented by LESSER BLACK BACKED and HERRING GULL. Not a very successful visit today!

Later on in the morning I took my camera in to be serviced, it'll be gone for two weeks now :-(  On returning home found a male BLACKCAP in my garden collecting food for nestlings, the first time this species has visited my garden in June, I grabbed my old camera, and had a go at some photo's of it, but the low  light isn't dealt with very well by my 400D camera and they are a bit grainy, later in the afternoon the sun poked its head out, and I had another go at the Blackcap, but by now that part of the garden was shady, - sometimes you just cant win  :-)

Here's the Blackcap, and also a STARLING that dropped in with an immature to be fed.
Male Blackcap collecting food for nestlings. The old 40D camera didn't perform too badly given the poor light  :-)
Sometimes he came out from the ivy, giving a nice view
Starling with youngster

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Blackcap images excellent

ShySongbird said...

Blimey! You can't complain at those photos Warren :-)

How lovely to have a Blackcap in the garden at this time of year, I only get them until about (I would have to look it up to be exact) mid-April. What a miserable day it's been and doesn't look like it's going to get any better!

Marc Heath said...

Nice shots Warren. Looks like a few wet days from now if we believe the weather.

Rohrerbot said...

I like the addition of the Blackcap to the bird photos. The Starlings are cute adorable. Just how much rain do you get?!:) Here we haven't had anything in months! In fact there is a forest fire in a state next to us blowing over smoke! Nasty and hard on the eyes.