It was cold and grey this morning, but the wind had died down a bit, making it feel a bit more comfortable.

I still await any activity on the Migrant front, the mean date for the arrival of the Cuckoo has now passed, and by this time last year I had recorded both Lesser and Common Whitethroat, as well as House martin.

Even the the common resident birds were hard to find today, and very little song was heard, only 3 CHIFFCHAFF and two BLACKCAP were braving the wintery feel of the morning, with some courageous attempts at singing.

My 3 hour patch walk was ended after I realised I was 'flogging a dead horse' if I thought I was going to find anything new, the only bright spot in the day was a flyover MEADOW PIPIT - yes it was that poor a day! Only 40 species were noted, a total that was easily being surpassed on any winters day!

The weather forecasters were saying it would brighten up in the afternoon, so in anticipation of that, I had a visit to Migrant alley for a quick circuit of the paddocks and a skywatching session, I managed to pick up PHEASANT and SKYLARK for the day list, found around the fields, and the skywatching produced a flyover CORMORANT and a COMMON BUZZARD, also two KESTRELS were hunting 100m apart from each other, I watched one of them successfully catch a small rodent. These additions only brought the daylist 45, and the promised brightening up never happened, it stayed cold grey and windy, so I gave up for the day, - very frustrating!!!!!!!!


This afternoon I took some garden bird photo's to brighten the blog up. Above is a spanking Male GREENFINCH and Below is a Male GREAT TIT.

This GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER was taking sunflower seeds from the floor, quite unusual to see them feed on the ground.

Nothing has changed overnight, the same cold northerly wind nagged away throughout the day, driving me nuts!! Most of the same bird species were noted again - probably the same birds! One exception was the sighting of two FIELDFARE at the College Grounds, a late record for my patch, in fact the latest, along with one seen on this day last year.

I had toyed with the idea of trying to reach 60 species in one day as I left this morning, but I think i'll try that later in the month, I would have failed miserably if had attempted it anyway, as todays list reached just 44, and considering I was out for 7 hours today, thats a pretty poor return.

The above female PHEASANT was very reluctant to fly off, maybe her nest was nearby, ive never encountered any young Pheasants on my patch, it seems all the nests fail at some point.

This BLACKCAP was belting out his song, making light of the cold wind, one of 7 heard on territory today.

A male BULLLFINCH showed well, but to distant for a good photo, nice to see though.

A Small Tortoiseshell was a good find, they were very scarce two years ago, and had a bit of a recovery last year, maybe this year they will do even better

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon watching the 'Pub Field' get muck spread and ploughed, hoping that some gulls would drop in. They did, but in no great numbers and didn't hang about, 7 HERRING and two LESSER BLACKBACKED GULL were the only visitors.

Another load of manure goes down............

....................Then its ploughed in.......

As soon as the plough hit the field the first ROOKS came in, some took food away suggesting they had young to feed back at the nearby Rookery

It didn't take much longer for the PIED WAGTAILS to come down either, a couple of dozen were amongst the furrows.

I might just take an evening stroll down later and check the field once the Tractors have left, you never know, a Whimbrel might just drop in :-)