Between the showers...

...I had quite a pleasant walk around Rawcliffe Moss this morning. In fact I was quite surprised at the lack of flood water as it rained heavily over night and all the fields were flooded when I was there on Thursday morning. Don't get me wrong, it was wet, but not as wet as I expected.


I called at the moss this morning to feed and also to put ropes on the net rides in readiness for the first ringing session. As always Pink-footed Geese were on the move and I had 578 go over. Down the hedge towards the feeding station 18 Chaffinch were with the 85 Tree Sparrows. The Tree Sparrows were only just arriving when I was at the feeding station hence the lower count compared with a few days ago. Presumably the bad weather had put them off from straying too far from their roost site.


A number of Skylarks were around this morning and I had 19 in total. Something was flushing all the Lapwing as I kept seeing parties getting up, but I couldn't get on to what ever was doing the flushing. In total I had 538 Lapwings flushed from the deck.

There were a few thrushes around this morning but not as many as a couple of days ago; only 1 Redwing, 2 Song Thrushes and 5 each of Blackbird and Fieldfare. As I was putting the ropes on I could see a Great Spotted Woodpecker flying down the track and periodically perching on fence posts. It worked its way down to one of my peanut feeders and fed a short while before moving off.

There is a large field to the west of where I park at the end of the track and I could see on the far side in a willow and the adjacent hawthorn hedge some large finch/bunting like birds perched up. I decided to have a walk round the field to have a look and I also thought that I might push a Reed Bunt or two along the ditch or something else out of the game cover alongside the ditch. I was right in that I pushed 5 Reed Buntings along the ditch and two Grey Partridges lifted from the game cover. As I got close to my mystery birds I could see that they were 27 stonking Corn Buntings. Nice!

Back at the car I watched seven Long-tailed Tits come out of Curlew Wood and slowly work their way along the hedge towards me and then they hopped to the next hedge and away. Fingers crossed for the weather tomorrow, and if it is okay I should be doing some ringing at the feeding station.

Murky conditions towards Bowland