Sunday dawned overcast and misty , but still very mild, although the tempretures are to drop from the middle of the week onwards. Willow and myself were not expecting much and in the end we were pretty suprise by what we saw, it still feels as if spring passage has started with drumming Greater Spotted Woodpecker and plenty of bird song now, especially Song Thrush .
Starlings were still plentiful with 600 plus seen as were Fieldfare 150 plus and Redwing 145 plus. A rather lonely Common Gull stood by the floodwater and 2 Pied Wagtail and 3 Skylark made themselves known.Just 2 Meadow Pipits today so the rest seem to have moved on.
A Green Woodpecker was new for the year and the local Kestrel flew over chased by some Jackdaws . A female Bullfinch called from the hedgerows and a Buzzard sat overlooking a field .
The best birds were the last ones seen when a flock of 12 Golden Plover made 3 circuits over before heading towards the river meadows .Really great to see these northern travellers as they will spending their summer on the northern tundra in the far north.
Species count for the patch now stands at 46.

It was like bird porn this morning looking out of the window there were 3 Lesser Redpolls on the niger feeder with a Coal Tit , a good start I thought . The thing about patch birding is it is about ups and downs , so today was the latter.
7 Stock Dove was more normal, but 1500 Starling was down on yesterday, but still good to see.
Fieldfare numbered only 7 and Redwing around 90 plus. 2 Buzzard were soaring around.
There were more Pied Wagtails of late with 4 present and a count of 15 plus Meadow Pipits were many more than of late. A Raven passed overhead
 The species count now stands at 44

On another very mild day Willow and I went for our stroll around the local patch, it felt like early April rather early January.
The birds seem to be around in greater numbers than of late, with over 3000 plus Starling feeding around the retreating floodwater, with 200 plus Fieldfare and 100 plus Redwing in the nearby hedgerows and pastures . A nice suprise was finding a female Reed Bunting in some rough ground, not a bird we see around here very often although they are quite common at nearby Ashleworth and Coombe Hill meadows, is this the first spring migrant?.
A female Sparrowhawk cruised over checking out the Starlings and the wintering Kestrel was on its usual telephone post .A Buzzard made up the cast of the birds of prey.
The best birds for me were  the record  number of Lapwings that were flying upriver and in the direction of Ashleworth at least 1400 were counted. really great to see so many ,it"s such a shame that hardly any remain to breed, most of these birds will be from northern and eastern Europe.
The patch species count now stands at 41.
Lets see what the weekend brings.

A calm day, with a gentle southerly breeze really made it feel like late March rather than early January ,it should be cold but it is anything but, will we get a cold snap I wonder ? .
The birds were not exciting but a flock of 200 plus Redwing with 60 plus Fieldfare with a few Song Thrush and the odd Mistle Thrush were nice to see , it is wierd to think I saw them on the Finish/ Russian border last May.Talking of Russians there are still a good number of Starling knocking  about 350 plus by Town Street Farm.
At least 50 plus Lesser Black Backed Gulls over towards the estuary and the 3 Meadow Pipits are still wintering here, there numbers are much diminished from last wintertime.A female Bullfinch was nice, and the years first Greater Spotted Woodpecker was welcome. A female Kestrel was hunting low over the fields and one of the local Buzzards was about .4 Stock Doves made up the best of the rest.
A garden Coal Tit on the feeders was nice addition to the year patch list.The total patch list now stands at 37.
  With the weather looking set for the next few days  it may stay fairly static as far as the birds go, but who knows ? 

January 2013,
OK lets get it out of the way ,what a crap effort at a blog ,I ran out of steam ,so this year it"s not gonna happen .At the end of the year I had managed to find 91 species on the patch. Bird of the year came in late October in the form of a cracking Great Grey Shrike .
So this year I will keep the blog updated with all the juicy bits and keep you updated with the total species count as we go.
So the frst thing this morning was it was not raining although there is still plenty of floodwater and the ground is still saturated. In truth it was pretty quiet with a few hightlights 7 Meadow Pipits is a higher count than of recently, and 25 plyus Skylarks is the high count of the winter so far.
There has been good numbers of winter thrushes this year ,so 100 plus Fieldfare and 50 plus Redwing was not unexpected although the former has numbered 600 plus in the last few days.
The only other highlight was a flock of 150 plus Black Headed Gull with 10 Common Gull on floodwater and at least 1000 Starling around Town Street Farm.
At he end of the walk we had managed (that is Willow my faithful bird dog and myself), to find 35 species ,not bad really ,heres to a great new year.

Suprise Visitor.

A cracking walk today with a very varied list today with a couple of superb highlights. The hedges had 4 CHIFFCHAFF, 8 BLACKCAP, 6 WHITETHROAT, 3 YELLOWHAMMER, 5 LINNET, WILLOW WARBLER.
Overhead a superb RED KITE drifted towards Ashleworth, follwed by 2 SHELDUCKS heading towards the river.Also overhead were aGREY HERON, 3 BUZZARD, 7 SWALLOW,7 SWIFT , 4 HOUSE MARTIN.
Around the fields were 6 RED LEGGED PARTRIDGE, STOCK DOVE, 4 SKYLARK, 3 PIED WAGTAILS in the top fields. A GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER and a hunting KESTREL. The best sightings were however a family of 1 adult FOX with 4 CUBS,also  1 BROWN HARE.

Two parts

I walked the lower patch today (Sunday), and a shortened walk on the upper patch, the net result was a good list of birds. On the lower patch the result of the flooding was obvious with all the growth around the ditches  dead with the smell of rotting plantlife  heavy in the air. As a result there were no Willow Warbler or Sedge Warbler.
There were 4 BLACKCAP, 2 CHIFFCHAFF, 4 singing REDSTART, 2 WHITETHROAT, a calling CUCKOO, male REED BUNTING.
Overhead were 14 HOUSE MARTIN, 10 SWIFT, just 2 SWALLOW and a female KESTREL.There was also a calling CURLEW, PIED WAGTAIL, 4 STOCK DOVE, just 1 SKYLARK, 4 BUZZARD and 1 COMARENT downriver.
On the upper patch a very short walk there were 7 BLACKCAP, 3 CHIFFCHAFF, 3 WHITETHROAT, a male PEREGRINE flew over at midday and a HOBBY flew towards Tewkesbury.