More blasted fog!!!

A frustrating time was had this morning, as very dense fog shrouded my patch, limiting sightings to just a few regular species, with no chance of seeing any flyover species. After just 90 mins I gave up, and headed home for breakfast, where I waited for the fog to clear. Just 29 species were noted in the 90 mins, which I spent walking over to the lakes area, but it was nice to see the LITTLE OWL in the Small Holding, plus a bonus on the lake was finding 4 MANDARIN DUCKS which flew from the bankside vegetation of the main lake.

By 10.00hrs the fog had only lifted slightly, but I got fidgety at home and took a walk over to the Tree Nursery, Pub Field and Migrant Alley ( see above photo). It was very hard going, but I slowly started to find a few birds, 24 MEADOW PIPIT were in the Tree Nursery, with 3 GREEN WOODPECKER, on the Pub Field there were an unknown number of BLACK HEADED GULLS, just shadows were seen, and looking for any Lapwing out there was hopeless!

I arrived at Migrant Alley, where eventually the fog did lift, but it was 11;30hrs by now, and the best bit of the day for birds had passed. I sat and watched the tall hedge next to my seat, and had a skywatch in some bright warm and springlike sunshine!  A KESTREL was up hunting over the Greenhouse Complex, spooking a few PIED WAGTAILS my way. In the tall hedge there were BLACKBIRDS, DUNNOCKS, 3 FIELDFARE, 2 CHAFFINCH and 4 YELLOWHAMMERS. Flyovers were confined to mostly gulls, 2 LESSER BLACK BACKED, and a few BLACK HEADED, but 6 small flocks of HERRING GULLS went south east.

In all then, not the best of visits!!

Photo opportunities were limited, but the tall hedge provided these two species  :-)

Dunnock

Dunnock

I finally got some sort of photo of the Yellowhammers that visit the tall hedge where I put the wheat grain for them, this is the best view of one ive had to date!

In the sunshine this afternoon, I spent an hour in my garden, trying for some photo's of the regulars. I was very pleased to see a female BULLFINCH arrive, but before I had even focused in on it, the blasted SPARROWHAWK had chased it off!  - I really am getting fed up with these pesky Sprawks!!

COAL TIT

Coal Tit

Coal Tit

GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER

Foggy Morning

It seemed to take an age for it to get light this morning, and it was gone 07:00hrs before I set out into the foggy conditions. The reduced visibility made finding the birds a bit frustrating, and at the end of the 3 hour full patch walk, just 38 species were noted, with some notable omissions, such as House Sparrow, Starling, or any sort of Raptor species.

I made an early visit to the Lakes and Scrubby Woods, in the hope of finding something exciting on the lakes, but it was down to just MALLARD and MOORHENS again,on the way however, as I passed through the Small Holding a LITTLE OWL was seen perched up in one of the old holey pear trees, also, flyovers from LESSER REDPOLL, SISKIN, and more excitingly ( for me!)  my first BRAMBLING (63) of November, I didn't see any of them but their calls were heard as I passed through the dripping trees of the Wet Woods. Around the lakeside vegetation, and into the Scrubby Woods, some, but not all of the regular species were noted, most of them feeding in a loose flock, containing LONG TAILED TIT, , GOLDCREST, NUTHATCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, CHAFFINCH, and both BLUE and GREAT TIT, no sign of a Treecreeper today, or a Coal Tit. JAYS and BULLFINCH'S called from the murk, and a PHEASANT was seen under the garden feeders of the nearby house.

I made my way over to the College Grounds, via the Tree Nursery and Pub Field, where the fog was at its worst, the likes of MEADOW PIPIT, YELLOWHAMMER, SKYLARK, and PIED WAGTAIL were all heard but unseen, as they went over somewhere in the fog, but probably the bird of the visit for me was seen in the hedgerow dividing the Tree Nursery and Pub Field, a CHIFFCHAFF (64), nice to see one of the many overwintering ones that now stay with us.

After getting home again and having a good breakfast, the fog had lifted into broken low cloud, and some sunshine peeked through, so I went back out through the Tree Nursery, along the Pub Field and over to my seat at Migrant Alley, I could now see all of the 52 BLACKHEADED GULLS on the Pub Field, and also 2 LAPWING that were there, plus at last I located some HOUSE SPARROWS in the hedge of a nearby large garden.Over on the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, it was now clear enough to see some STARLINGS feeding, and a KESTREL hunting over the paddocks, from my skywatching seat I picked up 4 STOCK DOVES going over, and incredibly, I heard then saw 3 CROSSBILL flying over, my fourth record of this species in ten years, all of them being in the last 24 days!  This brought up the daylist to more respectable 44, however, it was to make 45, shortly later in a sad incident for me  :-(   A SPARROWHAWK came crashing through the tall hedge adjacent to my seat, and grabbed the Robin that often sits watching me, the Sprawk dropped just a meter from my feet, and quickly flew off with my little songster  :-(  Over the last few weeks it had become very acceptable of my presence, and would grab any insects that I disturbed from the grass as I passed, giving me some close up photo's of it.........you can pay your last respects to him by visiting the post for the 14th November, where you can his photograph :-)

So after an unpromising foggy start to the day, that ended in tragedy for my mate Robin, I at least manged to get two more species on this Novembers list, making it the 3rd best out of the ten, still 4 behind top spot though!
 I only manged the photo at the top of the page this morning, but I got a few from my garden this afternoon, only the same old regulars though!

Starling

one of a pair of Nuthatch that visit

Blue Tit. There is always at least 15 about, so i went a bit mad with these  :-)

Another Blue Tit

Yet another One!