Amazing sight yesterday afternoon . Seventeen , beautiful , juvenile mistle thrushes feeding in a horse field. Sun reflecting from their plumage . Hurrah !
A group of Three pairs of crossbills in trees by the golf course 11am. Lifer for me. Anyone else seen them here? Rookery busy with fourteen nests thus far. The other rookery,behind Robinson's farm has approximately twenty nests.
Yes it was alone in a field. There were a couple of crows in a nearby tree but I didn't stick around long enough to see if they would join the white one.
Was quite a nice surprise on what had been a quiet afternoon walk.
Two or three months ago one of the local residents pointed it out to me in a field and said it had been around about four years. I noted at the time it was on its own and wondered whether it had been shunned by the others.
Whilst sat at the side of the scenic reservoir at Birtle this morning I could hear a Curlew callling from land somewhere to the north. My first of the spring.
Also two Ravens put on a quite spectacular aerial acrobatic display, sometimes appearing synchronised and at other times doing their own thing, soaring, tumbling and twisting, rolling over and diving as they got higher and higher in the air before appearing to drift off eastwards. At one stage they appeared to interact with what might have been another two Ravens but by this time they were very distant. At one fortunate time I had these two Ravens in view at the same time as a pair of displaying Kestrels. Absolutely thrilling bird watching.
singing round it 1 whitethroat 5 willow warblers chaffinch goldfinch greenfinch linnet robin blackbird wren dunnock house sparrow starling great tit blue tit
over it
stock dove 5 house martin 2 sand martin 12 swallow 10 swift 4 kestrel 1m
-- Edited by Paul Cliff on Tuesday 4th of May 2010 01:27:47 PM
1 jay 2 swallow 12+ sand martin 3 sparrowhawk (1 male 2 female - possibly the same bird twice) male and female great spotted woodpecker copulating 6 blue tit 3 great tit 2 chaffinch 6 bullfinch 2 willow warbler 1 chiffchaff 1 wren 4 blackbird
5 sand martin hawking toegether 2 f 1 m goosander 2 willow warbler coal and great tit, wren, chaffinch all in song. Edit to add 1 snipe accidentally flushed 2 male bullfinch
-- Edited by Paul Cliff on Friday 9th of April 2010 04:23:56 PM
A single swallow sat on a power wire beside White ash. 1 day later than last year, 3 days earlier than the previous year. 2 linnet 2 kestrel 1 heron 4 mallard 6 Canada geese 1 robin
-- Edited by Paul Cliff on Thursday 1st of April 2010 06:47:11 PM
what a lovely day for a walk over your local patch!
a bit of the walk was out of county so i'll stick an ooc next to them...
robin 9 wood pigeon 43 house sparrow 15 goldfinch 28 blackbird 5 magpie 23 a further 8 ooc collared dove 5 great tit 9 blue tit 13 carrion crow 27 a further 6 ooc dunnock 6 treecreeper 2 cormorant 1 kestrel 2 goosander 3 canada geese 19 black headed gull 6 mallard 11 meadow pipit 3 lesser black backed gull 11 chaffinch 9 pied wagtail 2 wren 3 greenfinch 5 mistle thrush 4 coal tit 2 siskin 7 lesser redpoll 3 lapwing 7 ooc little owl 1 and a further 2 ooc skylark 1 jackdaw 4 long tail tit 4 pheasant 1 starling 3 buzzard 1
really disappointed to miss out on sparrowhawk, moorhen, great spotted and green woodpecker, bull finch, goldcrest, rook and not a single winter thrush
White ash still almost all of it iced over 8 mallard 2 mistle thrush 78 fieldfare over in a single flock handful of redwing amongst them. 8 mipits 1 bh gull sat on the ice 2 collared dove 1 wren 4 stock dove over 5 wood pigeon over
-- Edited by Paul Cliff on Thursday 21st of January 2010 12:50:11 PM
2 meadow pipits 1 reed bunting 1 GSW 1 sparrowhawk 2 kestrel chaffinches goldfinches starlings house sparrows collared doves 1 buzzard in the roch valley with food, mobbed by 3 magpie blue tits coal tits great tits long tail tits wood pigeons jackdaws carrion crows 1 cormorant over 1 f bullfinch
-- Edited by Paul Cliff on Friday 8th of January 2010 07:34:09 PM
I never thought I would see it but here it is. Gordon Brown is so woeful even the Greenfinches are planning to vote for Cameron. Well done Greenfinches just shows you dont need a high IQ to see the obvious.
Just had a female kestrel fly by with a vole in her talons - heartening considering how much snow is on the ground. 10 lt tits and wren is all else so far.
If Greenfinches were to have political allegiances Paul, i'd have thought it would be the Green party or at worst the Lib Dems! Good count these days though. Numbers seem to have plummeted in many parts following on from the trichomoniasis epidemic. Henry.
water level very low this morning brought in a dunlin feeding in the newly exposed mud. very nice. 30 or so goosander and a couple of cormorants and a heron also.
Mallardfest still in full swing on White ash still 60+ birds 2 goosander male and female sparrowhawk thro female amazing ariel assault by a male peregrine on a female peregrine! Diving bombing talons and calling. Pied wagtail over heron over