Starling On the Suet Block, Back At Home

Today was another day where someone forgot to turn the lights on!!  A dense cloud cover persisted all day, but at least it stayed dry for my three and a half hour patch visit this morning, which provided me with 42 species, still a bit low for a November day.

Right from the off it was again evident that WOODPIGEONS were on the move, many hundreds headed south in flocks of 70-100, in fact good proportion of todays sightings were flyovers, with GREY HERON, PIED WAGTAIL, LINNET, REDPOLL, SKYLARK, LESSER BLACK BACKED, HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULL, MISTLE THRUSH, KESTREL, and 4 CORMORANTS, (another was also on the main lake fishing) all seen going over, the best flyover however, was of two flocks of LAPWING (54) one of 8 and one of 14, always good to see them, better if they were on one of the fields though  :-)

There were many more FIELDFARE about today, with several small flocks seen in various places on my patch, these no doubt fresh arrivals, coming in on the stiff NW breeze, not one Redwing was seen today though. Other sightings of note were the farmland species at Migrant Alley, which again included 6 YELLOWHAMMER, and 8 MEADOW PIPIT, while BULLFINCH, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, SISKIN, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and a SPARROWHAWK were seen at the more wooded end of my patch, the Sprawk was shown to me by 3 MAGPIES, who noisily mobbed it in a tall oak  :-)

This afternoon I ordered myself a large bag of wheat............I'm going to spread it in the bottoms of the hedgerows at Migrant Alley, and around the scrubby area at the Greenhouse Complex to try and attract a few birds in, mainly Yellowhammers, but who knows what may turn up, hmmmm....probably Pheasants!!

My first full patch walk of November, and the weather was nothing like as bad as had been forecast, a bit of light rain for the first hour, but dry and cloudy after that.

The last of the regular species that havn't been seen yet this month, the SONGTHRUSH (51) was eventually seen over in the Scrubby Woods, but I was disappointed not to record my first Geese of the month. On the other hand, a cracking male MANDARIN DUCK (52) was seen out on the main lake, along with a CORMORANT,  the former hasn't been recorded here since May.

Another first for the month was a REED BUNTING (53), a scarce bird here, one dropped down into the Tree Nursery, after flying in from a quite a distance away, calling all the while. Over at Migrant Alley, 8 MEADOW PIPITS, 12 SKYLARKS, 4 YELLOWHAMMERS, and 7 LINNETS were a welcome increase in activity here, and behind the College Stables a good flock of 23 HOUSE SPARROWS with 5 CHAFFINCH, 6 GOLDFINCH and two PIED WAGTAILS were feeding on a seemingly muddy paddock, but there must have been something there for them!

In the College Grounds the best sighting was of 4 LESSER REDPOLLS in a Silver Birch, but also a LONG TAILED TIT flock was actively feeding in the gardens, along with a TREECREEPER.  Only two HERRING GULLS and 4 BLACK HEADED GULLS flew over, a big decrease for them compared to recent visits, while also going over was an obvious movement of WOODPIGEONS, many flocks of approx 70 -100 birds were all going south, not a single raptor was seen today, quite unusual.

Just 39 species were recorded in the 3 hour visit, a bit below average, but the months total moves on to 53, which puts it in 9th place out of the ten Novembers so far recorded.

The camera stayed at home again today, but in a slightly brighter spell this afternoon, I took this WOODPIGEON pic from the back garden