Monday 1 November 2010

Above is a photo of the scrub/young wood at the north end of Migrant Alley


Now the clocks have been moved back an hour, it's light when I to walk to work, for a short while at least! I noted all the species as I walked in, which came to a a total of 24, of those, COLLARED DOVE, MAGPIE, JACKDAW, GOLDFINCH, FIELDFARE, CARRION CROW, BLUE TIT, STARLING, and ROBIN, were noted as I walked down ashes Lane first thing. Crossing Migrant Alley, there were a group of about 40 BLACK HEADED and HERRING GULLS, mostly the former, all feeding on the sheep pasture. SKYLARK and ROOK were also seen here. Passing through the College Grounds I added, WOODPIGEON, GREAT TIT, DUNNOCK, SONGTHRUSH, BLACKBIRD, HOUSE SPARROW, CHAFFINCH, GOLDCREST, WREN, JAY and GREEN WOODPECKER. The walk back home produced just one more species to add to the list, when 3 SISKINS flew from a large pine tree as I approached home.

The payback of the extra light in the morning is having it get dark earlier, so its always a bit of a rush to get out after work. I had time enough to visit the Lake area, Wet woods and Tree Nursery, however everywhere I went was heavily disturbed today, Mowers, Chainsaws and bonfires !! So all I really recorded was the really common bird species. MALLARD and MOORHEN were on the lake, one of each were prepared to put up with the Chainsaw noise, COAL TIT, MARSH TIT, PHEASANT, BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH, GREENFINCH and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER were in surrounding scrub.

A KESTREL flew over as I walked over to the Tree Nursery, Where I found a large party of at least 20 LONG TAILED TITS, as well as 2 MEADOW PIPITS, a MISTLE THRUSH and a few flyover PIED WAGTAILS. So the 1st day of the month ended with an ok total of 39 species, just 28 more to find now - one of them will be the Sparrowhawk, which incredibly I didn't see today :-)


Above and Below Long Tailed Tit


Below is the Albino Squirrel again, not a very clear photo, but it's quite dark in the wet woods. As the leaves fall it will get lighter, so I might be able to get a better photo.




10 comments:

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Nice autumn colour there Warren.
20 LTTs ain't a lot - rangers had 150+ of the little chaps going to roost in a blackthorn thicket last night - never heard of that before, have you? Anyone?

Cheers
Davo

Warren Baker said...

Now I dont want to start a competition here, by my biggest LTT flock was of 33 birds :-)

Bob Bushell said...

I love your pictures of the Long-tailed Tit, and the albino squirrel.

ShySongbird said...

Right I need to start counting :) I have seen some pretty decent flocks of LTTs in the past...never sure how to count them though or any large amounts of birds for that matter, they don't exactly stand obediently in line!!

Lots of nice Autumnal colour there Warren, lovely photos of the LTT and good to see the Squirrel again.

Warren Baker said...

Songbird, If you can, just stand back and find the lead birds, they all follow each other from one tree to the next and you can count them going across :-)

Unknown said...

Nice shots of the long tail tit, nice colours captured as well.My favourite is the squirrel though.

Marc Heath said...

Nice Long tailed Tit photo, little gems.

Chris said...

Wow the picture of the albinos squirrel is really cute.. At the time I'm writing on your blog, we are getting an alert on possible volcanic eruption in the southern Iceland... Well do not worry it is far away from Reykjavik, but this time it is the big one under the big glacier, and although nothing has started yet, there is a huge flood coming out of the glacier and they think it is because the volcano woke up!!! Maybe I'll see on after all ;-)

Anonymous said...

What no Sparrowhawk, Warren. Me neither.

Nice long-tailed Tit shots.

Jann said...

That albino squirrel just slays me! He seems mystical, like a unicorn...I think that's a pretty good shot, and so are the ones of the long-tailed tit(s).