Wednesday 19 March 2014

I spent 3 hours out on my patch early this morning, where it felt quite a bit cooler than of late under the overcast skies and brisk wind.

As I made my way over to the fields and Paddocks at Migrant Alley first thing, two BULLFINCH were seen in the Greenhouse Grounds and the YELLOWHAMMER was heard singing again in the Ashes Lane Field. Not too much was recorded on the fields and paddocks, a party of 18 BLACK HEADED GULL were in with the sheep, and HERRING GULLS passed over in two's and three's. I had an early skywatch from my seat as a change of tactics, a couple of SKYLARKS and MEADOW PIPITS were seen, and three single LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS flew over, a BUZZARD was up early flying low around the Greenhouse Copse, where I didn't see the Little Owl today.

After 40 minutes sky watching, and only adding KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK, I soon got chilled, so headed off over to the lakes and Scrubby Woods via the Ashes Lane Field, the old Shack there did have a LITTLE OWL on it today, plus the surrounding sheep pasture had about 20 REDWINGS and a few FIELDFARE on it, with them were a pair of MISTLETHRUSH.

Over on the lakes it was a case of checking up on the MUTE SWAN and COOT pair, and seeing that the CANADA GOOSE was still nest sitting. Just 4 MALLARDS and a scattering of MOORHENS were the only other bits on the water.

GOLDCREST, COAL TIT, CHIFFCHAFF and more BULLFINCH were the most noteworthy birds in the Scrubby Woods, while my walk back home through the Wet Woods was very quite and unremarkable, just a few JAYS squawking, a couple of NUTHATCH chasing about an Oak and two GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS drumming, two more Little Owls called to each other from the Small Holding, but that was about it for this mornings walk.

Not much action for the camera in the early gloom, but a few garden species were snapped this afternoon, it was still a bit dull for photo's really. The feeding station has been very sparsely attended compared to recent days, but a few nice birds are still coming in, a SISKIN paid a brief visit, as did Coal Tit and Nuthatch, and the Great Spotted Woodpeckers come in every 20 minutes or so.
GOLDFINCH
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COLLARED DOVES
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Great Tit
Nuthatch

4 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Some nice quality shots there, look good to the eye.

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Marc :-)

Phil said...

It certainly s a chilly old day today Warren, really felt it at Elmley today.
Great shots as usual. Why can't I ever get a half decent shot of a Goldfinch??

Warren Baker said...

Phil,
The Goldfinch is a particularly hard to get a good photo of, I find it so too, I think the different shades in its plumage give the camera difficulties !