A truly stunning morning ,and the first frost of the Autumn . As the sun rose a mist hung over the meadows , just stunning. Although there had been a frost it was only slight so had no penetration into the already hard ground.
In the bushes the Robin invasion continues with at least 25 plus seen today, they really are every where at the moment. The last embers of summer remain in the form of Chiffchaffs that continue to pass through with another 7 plus found this morning ,2 even sang for a short while . But it was the real Autumn birds that got the blood pumping this morning with a double whammy in the form of a pair of Reed Bunting and species number 85 for the year with a superb Stonechat on one of the hedges. I know there has been a large influx this Autumn and so its great to say they have reached even here.
On the pastures and stubble fields a nice flock of 50 plus Linnet were feeding. They will build up over the next few weeks as they pass through on the way south ,along side them were at least 118 plus Meadow Pipits which were feeding and some were passing over .
Skylarks have got going with at least 35 plus today ,some were on the pasture feeding but some passed over straight southwards. A slight disappointment were the 5 Pied Wagtail that were on pasture,I had expected many more today. A fellow birder had seen over 80 plus over Painswick Beacon this morning.
Overhead a Cormorant passed north and a fine skien of 45 plus feral Greylag flew out from the river meadows , 9 birds fed for a short while on a stubble field. The other birds that passed over were a Grey Heron north to south and a flock of 10 Stock Dove .
Raptors were 3 Buzzard ,a male Sparrow Hawk that was getting a good kicking from the local Jackdaws ,and like wise a female Kestrel that was suffering the same fate.
A Jay screeched deep from cover, so its nice to know that they are still around. The usual Woodpeckers were around with 2 Green Woodpeckers and a single Greater Spotted .
There appeared to be a few more Finches passing southwards and the highlight was a flock of 4 Bullfinch that passed over south , a further 3 were seen or heard in the hedges ,so a good count of 7 were seen today, more than enough for my Bullfinch fan !
So today we reached the same total of species seen in the whole of last year and its only October ,so hopefully we will break our record. We still await the arrival of the winter thrushes and it cannot be long before they arrive.
The total number of species for the year for the patch is now 85.
