Down On The Farm

I apologise for the lack of postings this week, but it has been all work and very little play! I shouldn't complain too much because my office is the great outdoors, but sometimes even though I am out surveying I see very little.

Amongst all the work I made sure that my farmland birds were fed and so were the Turnstones. My farmland bird feeding station is very settled at the moment with just under 100 Tree Sparrows regularly feeding there along with 20-30 Chaffinches.

In the week I was surveying some farmland in southwest Lancs and it was in an area of intensive vegetable and salad growing, where gross margins are critical to the profitability of the crop and the land is worked hard. It's a landscape of rectangular fields, mainly on mossland, with well maintained drainage ditches around all fields.

 My office this week

I had a nice flock of 72 Meadow Pipits, that got me thinking of Spring, especially when flying off giving their distinctive flight calls. In a few weeks time we should be starting to tape lure and ring them at the obs; I can't wait! Another reminder that Spring is just round the corner was singing Skylark and Mistle Thrush, both sing beautifully and lift your spirits on a cold February morning.

Pink-footed Geese were moving around from feeding area to feeding area and I had 445 go over as I walked round. A flock of 100 Linnets and a pair of Grey Partridges rounded the morning off. 

These ancient 'bog oaks' still appear when drainage work is done