Thursday 15 October 2009

The sunny weather was back again today, and with it came the birds. Once again a walk round to the small holding, wet woods, and lake/scrub area was had, before a quick visit to Migrant Alley. The small holding was quite lively, a TREECREEPER was on one of the old pear trees, as was a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, two GREEN WOODPECKERS were on the grass below the pear trees, along with a few CHAFFINCH, but strangley no Blackbirds were on the fallen fruit. GREAT and BLUE TITS were along the pathway to the wet woods, which itself was empty of birds, apart from a loudly calling NUTHATCH.

Not alot was to be seen at the lake, a few MALLARDS and MOORHENS, whilst BULLFINCH, GOLDCREST, and COAL TIT were the best of what was seen in the nearby scrub.

I crossed the tree nursery, which had another work party in it, so it was empty of birds, and went onto Migrant Alley. Once there I was pleased to see a flock of 22 LAPWINGS, the first this month. This flock is easiest the biggest October flock encountered on my patch, great birds, I was a bit greedy in hoping i'd find a Golden Plover in with them, but that seldom happens! The Lapwings didn't stay long, as a group of JACKDAWS infiltrated thier ranks, and started chasing and generally harrasing them, I was lucky to arrive when I did, as it would have been easy to miss them all. Other birds at Migrant Alley were 4 SKYLARKS, around 60 LINNETS, and a mix of a few MEADOW PIPITS and PIED WAGTAILS.


Below is the Great Spotted Woodpecker, seen on a pear tree in the small holding.

Next is one of the Linnets, in the tall hedge at Migrant Alley

This is a MAGPIE, taking a ride on one of the sheep!

and below is a JAY, which was foraging below the tall hedge.

Below is the Lapwing flock, quite far off, as I didn't want to spook them all up.

But as it happened, they were moved on by the jackdaws. Another far away photo. Might be better to enlarge it!

lastly, here's just one of the upteen low flying aircraft that went over my patch today, it's a wonder I see anything at all ! I find myself wishing back the low cloud and drizzle at times, that grounds all these bloody things!!








9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Low cloud & drizzle. You`re welcome to it, Warren. That`s exactly what we got up here in Yorks, and it was bloody awful.

Well done on adding Lapwing to the monthly list.

Warren Baker said...

Heh Heh Heh. Dean it's gotta be better than low bloody aircaft every few minutes!

Ipin said...

low cloud and drizzle would be good here tomorrow until about 8am!

Phil and Mandy said...

A good day then mate, we are off to WWT WELNEY in the morning, more pics 2moro for all to see. Phil

Ken. said...

Hi Warren.
Well done seeing the 22 Lapwing. I hope your monthly total is on target.

ShySongbird said...

It seems like we swapped weather, ours was lovely yesterday and horrible today!

It beats me how you manage to count large numbers of birds which are constantly moving. You do see a lot of Linnets, I see they are on the red list but that there is a strong concentration of them in Kent.

Great photos today, the Magpie hitching a lift made me laugh.

Anonymous said...

Nice shots. I like the helicopter too.

Jann said...

Wow, awesome photos! The magpie on the sheep is wonderful! Great jay and woodpecker shots too, way to go! I'm so envious, not finding hardly any birds nowadays to snap.

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
A nice day you got. i love the linnet and woodpecker shots. They are beautiful...
You got a very strange bird on the last one!! I would be scare to death by this one, thought!! have a nice week end.