plastic everywhere!

So after a wet night, the really mild weather remains, the west wind in stark contrast from last week.
A glance upwards picked out a Cormarant flying south. A large formation of Canada Geese flying upriver followed by 2 Greylag got my attention, the latter being part of a feral population that lives on the river meadows and not "wild " as would be hoped for.
The Starling passage carried on from yesterday with 117 plus passing south west, also over were a flock of 29 Redwing that passed over to the west flying fast and in silence .
After a while a flock of 41 Fieldfare appeared from over Tirley hill followed by a small flock of 6 which landed on pasture.
Overhead the small passage of Pied Wagtails (9 ), and Meadow Pipits ( 8) carried on from the last few days . Skylarks were less numerous than of late with just 7 seen today.
The one bright spot in an otherwise poor day was a flock of 60 plus Linnet on a  stubble field and a distant soaring Sparrowhawk .On a recently harvested field a large flock of feral pigeons were feeding ,so with the plastic geese and the plastic pigeons not a day for the purist.
Lets hope for better next week as I am on holiday  !

come on in 84 your time is up.

Yep after weeks and weeks finally I managed to find the no 84 for the patch this year. It came on Thursday when I flushed  a Snipe from pasture , a nice way to get to 84 species so far this year . The rest of the week has been really quiet , with the weather becoming very mild and with southerly winds it has felt more like Spring than Autumn. The birds have reflected this with no Winter Thrushes at all and just the highlites being a calling Tawny Owl ,a couple of Ravens and a good number of Skylarks on Thursday with 40 plus being present.
So when I went out on Saturday morning I was not expecting to get much in return.
So the first bird was a Raven which called as it passed north. It soon became obvious that Skylarks were moving and in the end 45 plus passed over or were on pasture, that being said only I could only muster 9  Meadow Pipits a poor total. Pied Wagtail were about with 12 in various places but I could not turn any of them into White ,shame really.
A couple of nice sightings this morning were a Wheatear on a dung hill ,getting rather late now and a male Reed Bunting in a hedgerow another migrant . A small flock of 20 pus Linnet were on stubble and it was then that I noticed a small trickle of Starling passing south in the end about 100 plus were counted ,with them 5 Redwing passed over and 4 Fieldfare called as they did likewise. As I was near home a flock of 25 Fieldfare dropped onto pasture great to see ,I have a real passion for our winter Thrushes after seeing them in their summer home last year when I visited northern Finland last year.
4 Mistle Thrush were about and a small flock of 3 Bullfinch  passed over .
The best of the rest were Kestrel, Buzzard, 2 Greater Spotted Woodpecker, 4 Stock Dove and a couple of flyover Song Thrush.

Redwing passage

Sunday dawned grey , with light rain and a gentle northerly wind . I was not out as early as I should of been and after a quick scan of what had arrived along the east coast yesterday I was thinking that I may have missed out.
Redwings were still passing over with 233 plus passing over south to south west , all coming from an easterly direction and all in a hurry to get where they were going.
Meadow Pipits were few in number with only 7 plus been around today and Skylarks only numbered 12 today ,but Pied Wagtails put in a decent showing with 7 passing over.
A call from high above alerted me to a/some Golden Plover which were passing over high in the murk, but they were hidden in the low cloud base , these were soon followed by 9 distant duck in from high north , I soon realised that they were Wigeon, the first of the winter , they decended into the river meadows .
A "charm" of 21 Goldfinch were in the hedges but in the strong wind it appeared that most other small passerines were keeping a low profile
The raptor flag was carried by 3 Buzzard and a female Sparrowhawk which attempted to take the head off a perching crow. It missed but gave the crow one hell of a shock.
A very distant flock of 30  Thrush were hard to pin down but looked very like Fieldfare, another couple of Mistle Thrush looked like our winter visitors rather than transient birds.
The best of the rest were 2 Red Legged Partridge, and 4 Stock Dove.
So there was no Yellow Browed Warbler or even a Yellow Browned Warbler , sorry about the error yesterday must learn to read it before I push the publish button.

The week that was

Another week over and as normal I could only manage a couple of visits during the week but did see another Wheatear on a fence post and the first of the winter visitors  with a flock of 18 Redwing which passed through on Thursday. Away from the patch whilst at football training watching my son I saw a flock of 7 Swallow belting southwards and a flock of 40 plus Pied Wagtail.
So having seen on the internet the massive arrivals of birds on the east coast on Friday and the prevailing winds on Saturday I was on the patch on Saturday early. As I stepped out I heard a Pied Wagtail pass over and a great surprise was a BADGER  which ran up the lane amazing ,especially with the cull taking place locally.
We passed up the lane and realised it was quiet , just too quiet then we heard the hunting horns and lo and behold once again the hunt was out again cubbing but this time I just walked across the fields with Willow on the lead and stood and stared at them through my binos ,they realised I was not going any where and eventually moved out the area. They are breaking the law plain and simple.
The wind was a very strong northerly , and it soon became obvious that this had brought with it a bit of vis mig as they say. Redwings passed over from the east and 227 plus were counted in two hours as well as a single flock of 65 Fieldfare from high eastwards. Around 200 Starling were about and a total of 8 Mistle Thrush were obvious migrants including a flock of 6.
The Meadow Pipit passage has now dwindled at the moment only 4 been seen today , Pied Wagtail numbered 9 and 18 plus Skylark were on pasture.
The back up crew consisted of 30 plus Stock Dove, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, 80 plus Jackdaw, and a couple of Buzzard. Lets see what tomorrow brings , a Yellow Browned Warbler would be nice although I have just seen that at Falsterbo in southern Sweden 250,000 Wood Pigeons passed over yesterday so something like that would be nice, still you can dream !

Unfufilled promise.

So in the week when work as usual got in the way of the birding and when in the brief visits to the patch giving me a male Peregrine swooping at a flock of Linnets ,male Sparrowhawk, overhead passage of Meadow Pipits , the final House Martins, Swallows , Raven and calling Tawny Owls I had a right to be allowed to think that the usual  survey of the patch on a Saturday was going to be a busy affair.
Well it was a massive fail on that point , it being one of the quietest walks for some time. The main sighting was a large number of Stock Doves feeding on the recently harvested corn fields with well over 70 plus being seen. A few Autumn migrants were about with the first Autumn Jay heading south and an influx of 5 Mistle thrush and 5 Greater Spotted Woodpecker  been seen . A flock of 27 Linnet passed south and a small passage of 6 Pied Wagtail ,16 Skylark passed over. Only 6 Meadow Pipits were seen today ,after flocks of 60 plus were seen all week.
In the hedges were 2 Bullfinch, male Sparrowhawk, and 4 Chiffchaff.
Lets hope for better tomorrow.

Friday and Sunday

Not a lot to report over the last two visits ,was out by 8am on Friday and in general the feel of the patch was very quiet.
Pied Wagtails continue to trickle south , 5 seen heading south.
In the hedges were 8 Chiffchaff but very little else. Overhead 30 plus Skylark and 50 plus Meadow Pipits were followed by just 11 Swallow today.
The saviour of a generally quite walk was a  superb Wheatear found in a recently seeded field.
The best of the rest were Greater Spotted Woodpecker, 102 Starling, 3 Buzzard, Kestrel, Grey Heron over. Sunday was more of the same really , with 2 Tawny Owls calling at 4.40am .So by 7.30am I was out with Willow.
On pasture were 40 plus Meadow Pipits today and Pied Wagtails still keep passing over with 7 today. 54 Swallow over with the largest flock being 40 plus. In the fields were 20 plus Skylark and a flock of 60 plus Rook.
 In the hedges were just 3 Chiffchaff , Bullfinch , and 3 Linnet. As I was almost home I saw a very distant flock of birds , they looked very like Fieldfare but were so distant I could not make a firm ID. Lets hope that the East winds which are dropping all sorts of goodies all over the east coast , bring something nice over to us.

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 .