Friday 27 November 2015

A strengthening SW wind blew yet more damp, dreary and drizzly weather across the area this morning.

I headed out to Greenhouse Grounds to re-stock the hedgerow and wooden pallet with sunflower hearts first thing this morning, the female KESTREL looked down at me from one of the greenhouses as I did so, and the mixed finch flock of GOLDFINCH, GREENFINCH, CHAFFINCH, SISKIN and LESSER REDPOLL were flying about the place, where I also noted at least 3 YELLOWHAMMER, but I've not seen them on the supplied seed yet. PIED WAGTAIL, GREY WAGTAIL, BLACKBIRD, SONGTHRUSH, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN and a GOLDCREST were also around the area.

At least 100 BLACK HEADED GULLS were out on the adjacent sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, they were joined by half a dozen HERRING GULLS at one point, plus a lone COMMON GULL. Around 30-40 STARLINGS also fed on the pasture, associating with the mixed Corvid flock which was mostly of ROOKS and JACKDAWS.

I soon headed off to the lakes, passing through the Ashes lane Fields as I went, here I saw 6 MEADOW PIPIT fly up, an increase on recent days and a SKYLARK trilled as it flew low over. A commotion in an Apple tree, some 50 meters distant in a large garden, turned out to be a a couple of CARRION CROWS and a couple of MAGPIES mobbing a BUZZARD, in the end they drove it off into the nearby Wet Woods.

At the lakes, my hopes for a duck species other than MALLARD went unfulfilled, 14 of those were present, along with a scattering of MOORHENS, but on the bright side, the COOT was still there and the KINGFISHER was again giving good but distant views.

Two flocks of REDWING both containing 12 -15 birds dropped into the Scrubby Woods as I walked through, joining four FIELDFARE that were already on a Hawthorne tree. At least another 6 Goldcrests were also present, mixing with a LONG TAILED TIT flock, which also had NUTHATCH and TREECREEPER tagging along with them as well as the usual BLUE and GREAT TITS. A JAY,  a pair of BULLFINCH, plus both GREAT SPOTTED and GREEN WOODPECKERS all showed up again today, but no sign of a Coal Tit.

Back to the 'Blog Folder' for todays images, not much left now!


Dunnock



Still got a few of the Redpoll images left  LoL!





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