Monday 28 September 2015

Long sunny spells were had this morning, when it was initially still and calm, but a moderate NE breeze soon picked up.


CANADA GOOSE flying over Migrant Alley

As I walked Migrant Alley early on, it soon became evident the SWALLOWS had left, just two were seen late in the morning as they flew south. There were however plenty of MEADOW PIPITS out on the sheep pasture, at least 30 were seen, plus there were a few LINNETS on the paddocks too. The many hundreds of Canada and GREYLAG GEESE were seen passing over on their daily commute, as you can see above, a Canada Goose came over a bit closer today  :-)


Linnet



At the Greenhouse Grounds the KESTREL surveyed its territory from one of the glasshouses, it wasn't bothering the dozen SISKIN feeding in the Alders, or the BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS, CHAFFINCHES, SONGTHRUSH, BLACKBIRDS, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN and single CHIFFCHAFF that were with them.

I checked the drainage ditch at the Ashes Lane Field, which had no surprises this morning, but 6 SKYLARK flew over whilst I was there and 2 BUZZARDS flew from the nearby Wet Woods.

I had a quick look around the Lakes, which had 50+ Canada Geese and 2 Greylag Geese on the main lake, along with a single female Mandarin Duck. The small lake had 2 GREY HERONS resting up on the island there, while the ornamental lake was only good for a few MALLARD and MOORHEN.


Grey Heron

 
The adjacent Scrubby Woods held no summer birds at all, but COAL TIT, GOLDCREST, NUTHATCH, BULLFINCH, JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GREEN WOODPECKER and MISTLETHRUSH were found.

The only other notable occurrences this morning were seeing a HOBBY fly over as I was undertaking a sky watch later in the morning, plus a GREY WAGTAIL also flew over, eventually alighting in the Greenhouse Grounds.HERRING GULLS were the only other flyovers today.



2 comments:

Marc Heath said...

Lovely Linnet shots Warren and nice detail we don't some times get to see as they whizz by.

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Marc,
I'll be sad to see them move off for the winter months, though I might get the odd one appear for a brief visit.