Wednesday 10 July 2013

Looking SW from the Wooded headland at Migrant Alley
Again, early cloud this morning soon burnt off, and by 08:30 it was warm and sunny with a bit of a breeze blowing.

The 5 hour patch visit wasn't as productive as yesterday, but I cant complain with 46 species being recorded, one of those, the HOUSE MARTIN (59) was new for this month, putting this July's list in joint second last place with July 2003, but with still two thirds of July to go, that should improve a little  :-)

Whilst taking the photo above, I could hear song from SKYLARK, BLACKCAP, CHIFFCHAFF, WHITETHROAT and BLACKBIRD, the pasture to the left of the photo had 12 GREYLAG GEESE feeding on it, along with many ROOKS and JACKDAWS, a fair proportion of them being immature birds. Overhead, as I watched the sky from my seat a few hundred meters away, the regular three Raptor species were seen up hunting, KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD, also seen were HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULL as well as a GREY HERON and the already mentioned House Martins, of which there were 4.

A couple of hours of the visit was spent around the Scrubby Woods, looking for evidence of Successful breeding, i'm still to find young for the likes of Green Woodpecker or Collared Dove, I know they breed here, but I failed to locate any fledglings again.

This afternoon I took a break the work I was doing to improve my garden for the wildlife, and tried to get some images of the birds that use one of my small ponds, it's all a bit shadowy at that end of the garden, and against what light there is but I got a few images  :-)
Immature BLACKBIRD
Immature GREAT TIT
Female CHAFFINCH
A host of Immature BLUE TITS
Immature Blue Tit
Immature Blue Tit
GOLDFINCH, GREENFINCH, STARLING, HOUSE SPARROW and ROBIN also visited the pond, not bad for a one meter square water feature, it certainly attracts more species than the grazed wastelands pictured at the top of the post!



5 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Nice selection Warren of bathing beauties!!

Greenie said...

Warren ,
You're probably finding like us that the 'waterholes' need topping up every day in this weather .
Sure the birds appreciate your efforts .

Sharon said...

Lovely photos Warren - especially the Blue Tits.
We don't get any of the Tit family in our garden anymore, I'm not sure why :(

Warren Baker said...

That sounds strange Sharon, the Tit family are always the first to come to feeders. Needs looking into!

Stephen Mills said...

Fantastic pictures Warren. Everything seems to be enjoying your bath.