Just before sun up

What a glorious Autumnal day today, unbroken sunshine from dawn till dusk, a bit chilly to start with though, with the first frost of the Autumn covering the grass.

The four hour visit from 06:30, produced a total of 47 species, which is a good tally for an October day, this included two CHIFFCHAFF, both of which were in song, one was in the Greenhouse Complex Grounds the other in the Lakeside scrub, but they were the only summer species recorded today.

Early on, just as the sun rose, I watched and listened for anything flying over Migrant Alley, this was quite productive today, as REDWING, FIELDFARE, SISKIN, SKYLARK, MEADOW PIPIT, LAPWING and two skeins of GREYLAG GEESE were all recorded, while a LITTLE OWL called from over at the Greenhouse Copse.

Three raptor species were seen, a KESTREL hunted over the Tree Nursery, a pair of SPARROWHAWKS hunted just about everywhere! The third raptor species was BUZZARD two of which were still associating with the Wet Woods.

COAL TIT, NUTHATCH, BULLFINCH, and GOLDCREST,  were notable species recorded over at the Lake and Scrubby Woods area, where also of note was watching a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER excavate a hole in a dead Silver Birch tree, no doubt to roost in.

There were no new species recorded for the month, which remains on 64, the joint 4th best October tally.

Singing Chiffchaff at the Greenhouse Grounds

As the light was so good today I took also some garden bird pics  :-)

GOLDFINCH

Nuthatch

CHAFFINCH

Coal Tit

It was clear and mild this morning on the way to work, and as it got light a few birds of note were seen going over Migrant Alley. 4 GREY HERON,  2 skeins of GREY LAG GEESE (one of 14 one of 17 birds), 2 LESSER REDPOLL, 5 min of MEADOW PIPIT and a SISKIN. It looked good just to sit and watch the sky for an hour, but work beckoned  :-(

After work, I was back out on patch, I visited the Tree Nursery and Pub Field first, hoping something had dropped into the many shrubs in the nursery, there were plenty of CHAFFINCH and BLACKBIRD about, some probably new in, but not much else, a KESTREL hunted above for a few minutes, and 3 SKYLARKS flew over as I left for the Pub Field. Here it was all very dry and quiet, just a few more Chaffinch's around the edge of the field. I cut back through the Tree Nursery to get to Migrant Alley, and as I looked over at the sky above the Wet Woods I saw two BUZZARDS actually come down and go into the woods, a very scarce sight to see a Buzzards alight anywhere on my patch!

Over at Migrant Alley there was a gaggle of silly squealing student teenage girls, learning how to clean horse troughs, so i didn't bother with a circuit of the paddocks, instead I watched the sky for an hour, from my seat.. This produced a few more flyovers from the likes of Skylark, Redpoll, Meadow Pipit, but only ever in singles at a time. There was the usual sighting of a SPARROWHAWK, and the local PIED WAGTAILS at the Greenhouse Complex had a GREY WAGTAIL with them today, but it didn't hang around long. To the south of my patch there was a field being ploughed, and large numbers of HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULLS flew over my patch to get to it, they were joined by hundreds of Corvids, the whole lot kept getting spooked every few minutes, sending a huge cloud of Gulls and Corvids into the air in a swirling mass, the Buzzards I saw earlier probably being the culprits for that!

Not much else to report until I got up to leave at around 17:00hrs, when a final look up revealed 7 LAPWING (64) coming from the North and flying directly over the Greenhouse Complex, at last something to kick start the months list again  :-)

One of the many Black Headed gulls that went over

One of the Chaffinch 's

Bonus photo today, the garden BLUE TIT, I couldn't resist this one  :-)