Tuesday 27 October 2015

A Bit Of A Late Autumn Fall

One of the benefits of knowing your patch inside out and visiting it often, is that you can easily detect any changes in the number and species make up of the birds utilising the site. This morning was a classic example as I knew straight away that there had been a small fall of Thrush species.

Overnight it had started clear and then sometime before dawn cloud had moved in and it had become quite murky. When I got to the Obs at 7:15 a.m. I had 6 oktas cloud cover with a 10 - 15 mph southeasterly wind and it was a touch murky out to sea.

As I said before I realised immediately that a few birds had been dropped and that a small fall had occurred consisting of nine Robins, two Mistle Thrushes, four Song Thrushes, two Stonechats, nine Reed Buntings and two Fieldfares.

There was some vis this morning but it wasn't exactly 'rocking' and all I had was a Skylark, a Goldfinch, 19 Meadow Pipits, eight Chaffinches, an Alba Wag, six Carrion Crows, a Lesser Redpoll, two Grey Wagtails, two Rock Pipits and a Siskin.

During the morning there were some Pink-footed Geese dropping in to the farm fields across the road and in total I had 1,097. Both Barn Owls were active this morning and were hunting for a good hour or more after first light. I watched one of the Barn Owls catch a small mammal and a young male Kestrel repeatedly mobbed the Barn Owl  trying to get its prey off it.

 Pink-footed Geese

Barn Owl

Kestrel

I had a quick look on the sea but it was very quiet with just four Cormorants and two Eiders. The forecast looks grim for tomorrow and I have a site visit on Thursday, so it will be Friday before I am out again, but at the moment the forecast isn't looking too good for then either!

Grey Heron

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