Sometimes its hard to keep birding on your patch when just down the road at Ashleworth and Coombe there are birds aplenty ,that has not been the case here this week ,it has been a very quiet week with the Autumn turning (well on the calendar anyway ) turning into winter. As such most migrants seem to have passed through so if we are to reach the magic 90 species this year on the patch we are reliant on birds moving due to the weather etc. , well the weather has just stayed the same , mild and wet , not at all like the hardest winter we are supposed to be having, that being said there has been a report of 3 Waxwings on the Gloster Birder so I am going to keep scanning all those Starling flocks .
So over the last week visits to the patch have been few and far between with work etc getting the way ,the only high lights in my brief visits were good numbers of Redwings with most days offering 3 figure counts ,lesser numbers of Fieldfares and an obvious arrival of Starlings onto the patch on Wednesday.
Willow and I hit the patch on Saturday around mid morning ,later than normal and I always feel that I will have missed something good.
The most prevalent birds were 57 plus Redwing ,20 plus Fieldfare and 21 plus Blackbirds most were feeding on the Hawthorn berries of which there are plenty. Other Thrush present were 4 Mistle Thrush and a nice sprinkle of Song Thrush some of which were singing . The influx of Starlings I mentioned seem to have disappeared with very few around . Other birds in the hedges were 8 plus Robin ,well down on recent counts and 2 Bullfinch well away from their usual haunt .
Overhead a soaring male Sparrow hawk was nice to see , and the usual 2 other raptor species showed with a lone Buzzard and a nice male Kestrel.
A couple of Jays passed over and 4 Raven menaced the patch passing low over gronking , I love them , great lumps of bad ass , almost saying "come have a go if you think yer hard enuff " .
On the pastures it was very quiet with 5 Meadow Pipits and just 2 Skylark . It seems an age ago we were seeing large flocks of the former as they passed through. A lone Stock Dove and a Pied Wagtail made up the pasture brigade .
As I neared the outer limit of the patch I decided to walk on the very edge of the patch as the field in question has been under crops ,there is a nice area of Silver Beech and rough ground on the margins of this field and I was rewarded with a superb flock of 15 plus Lesser redpoll feeding on the birches, I really must look there more often ! .
The best of the rest for Saturday were 2 Green Woodpecker and a good count of 4 Greater Spotted Woodpecker .
So Sunday dawned wet after over night rain and again super mild. It seemed to be a repeat of yesterday with nice flocks of redwings ,140 plus feeding on Hawthorn berries ,good grub for a hungry bird .Fieldfares numbered just 8 today and Blackbirds remained static at 19 plus .The latter seems to at around 20 plus birds wintering on the patch this year. 4 Mistle Thrush and around 6 plus Song Thrush made up the wintering Thrushes today. There were more Starlings about with 250 plus feeding on pastures and in the old orchards .
In the hedges 2 Bullfinch were pewing gently and 13 plus Robins ticked at each other .
On the pastures were 4 Stock Dove and 5 Pied wagtails feeding on the manured fields. A flock of 26 Linnet paused briefly before diving for cover, these are the first birds of any number for a few weeks . 5 Red Legged Partridge crouched beneath an hedge row ,they are very under rated birds ,so pretty when you look at them .
We seem to have got our gang of Ravens back with 4 over and around the patch. Lets hope they stay for the winter.
The best of the rest were a Jay, Green Woodpecker, 2 Buzzard and 1 Greater Spotted Woodpecker.
So after a quiet week we live in hope for something exciting and wintery.
