Thursday 26 September 2013

Thursday Amble

A day off, east winds , low cloud ,you just gotta hit the local patch and it is nearly one year ago when we were graced by a Great Grey Shrike , so with that in mind Willow and myself were out at 8am .
It was overhead that was where the main action was and in a 3 hour slot 6 Skylark ,70 plus Swallow a flock of 23 House Martin ,23 plus Meadow Pipit , 8 Pied Wagtail ,8 Linnet  moved south .Not a flood but a slight trickle.
 In the hedges were 8 Chiffchaff (including singing birds), a very brief Blackcap, Bullfinch and several Passover Goldfinch .

2 Raven moved south west , and a female Sparrowhawk was about looking for breakfast as was a female Kestrel. The only other raptor was a Buzzard.
The build up of Starling has started, maybe a few have arrived from the continent ? as there was a flock of 300 plus on pasture ,the largest number for quite awhile.
The best of the rest were A Green Woodpecker, Red Legged Partridge. The patch total stays on 83 for the year so if we are going to add to that then the next few weeks will be important .