Monday 11 August 2008

Monday morning, and although I wasn't working it was obvious everyone else was! I spent most of the day birding on my patch, and disturbance was everywhere. Mowers on the golf course, Garden machinery around the lake area, bulldozer at the greenhouses, and it sounded like brands hatch at the college grounds with all the strimmers and hedge cutters going.
Anyway, i'll get told off if I keep moaning! Despite all the above I recorded 49 species, though again actual numbers of birds were low. The biggest concentration of birds was a mixed feeding flock of BLUE, GREAT and LONG TAILED TITS, along with a couple of TREECREEPERS, all in the wet woods. As I came out of the woods and into the small holding, a LITTLE OWL was roosted up in an Oak tree.
A good record for the day was 2 SAND MARTIN that went over with a single SWIFT, a bit of migration going on, but no migrants were seen at migrant alley, just LINNETS, PIED WAGTAILS and a mixed Corvid flock. A KINGFISHER was at the college grounds along with at least. 2 SPOTTED FYCATCHERS, remarkably the first seen this month! Normally Aug. is a good month to see Spotfly's. KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK flew over during the visit, as did 3 types of GULL, LESSER BLACK BACKED, HERRING and BLACK HEADED.

This male Ruddy Darter took my eye, a striking colour
The Meadow Brown butterflies are fading now, along with the summer

I saw this Blue Tailed Damselfly at the college. Other dragonflies seen there were, Brown and Migrant hawkers, I wanted a pic. of the latter but it wouldn't settle


5 comments:

Josh Jenkins Shaw said...

Sounds like a good day there apart from all the noise and machinery! These Little owls are just getting ridiculous, I still aven't seen one, suffering from 'little owl blindness'
Oh well!

Greenie said...

Warren ,
You just pulled out of that one in the nick of time !
Like the confidence with the Dragon/Damselfly ID .
Great bird count .

Mosura said...

That Ruddy Darter is a beauty!

This Is My Blog - fishing guy said...

Warren: I love the Ruddy Darter. That red color is outstanding.

I shot my first red dragonfly this weekend at a small pond along with several others at the pond. I will post them later this week.

Warren Baker said...

Josh,
keep looking mate. If you find one, it generally uses the same area or place to roost in.

Greenie,
I'm getting better with the dragon fly ID. Thanks for the help!

Thanks mosura,
Bet you've got some nice odenata down there!