Winter Wildfowl

I started off at the southwestern end of the obs as usual this morning, as this is closest to home, and 'worked' the fields, hedges, ditches, reeds, dunes and looked on the sea. I had full cloud cover with a 15-20 mph WNW wind. The weather conditions weren't conducive to much migration and the sea was difficult as it was a long way out.

Fairly early on one of the regular Kestrels was hunting the fields and I picked a second bird up calling from a building later on. The only other raptor I had was an immature male Sparrowhawk that shot through as I was looking on the sea.

The only grounded migrants I had this morning were four Wheatears along the sea wall. I tried to get a few shots, as you will see below, but it was windy and the light was poor. That's my excuse for the poor quality anyway!

 You can see how breezy it was

I'm not sure what it was looking at

On the sea I had three Eiders and then I had nine Pintail head north followed by four Teal. I suppose my blog title should have been 'autumn wildfowl' but it didn't have the same alliteration effect! There was a trickle of 'vis' in the form of seven Swallows, a House Martin and a Grey Wagtail.

I didn't see a lot else and decided to check on the Woodpigeons nesting in one of our net rides. I could see that there was at least one well-grown young (the female was incubating 2 eggs) and it would fledge soon meaning we would then be able to get our 60 foot net up the next time we were out ringing here.

I then called at the coastal park and although it was sheltered there was absolutely no migrants. I decided to call it a day and headed home. The forecast is similar for tomorrow, so it is doubtful that I'll get any ringing done but I will be out birding as ever.