A Very Pleasant Three Quarters Of An Hour

Gail and I headed to the feeding station this morning to do a 'seed drop' and to have a quick look round. The food is going in less than a week now, so I need to increase the frequency of my visits. We had full cloud cover with a 15-20 mph SSW wind.

There were good numbers of Pink-footed Geese heading south and they will have been coming off their Morecambe Bay roost sites. Some birds were dropping on to some of the stubbles to feed and others stopped for a short while and took off heading south.

On the wildfowl theme I had my first Whooper Swans of the autumn when a party of eight headed low north. I was busy putting food out and they had gone past before I could think of getting my camera out. Tree Sparrows are still hovering around the thirteen mark at the feeding station and to be honest I need to increase the frequency of feeds as I stated earlier to build the numbers up.

Walking past the flooded stubbles we picked up a large raptor being mobbed by a number of Alba Wags and Meadow Pipits and it was a 'big' female Peregrine. I say big, as she was one of the largest females that I can remember seeing. Tranquillity returned to the stubbles and a Green Sandpiper dropped in to feed.

 One of the mobbing Albas

A mixed flock of Tits moved along the hedge and this included a number of Blue and Great Tits, plus seven Long-tailed Tits and a couple of Goldcrests. At this point it was time to return to the car and head home, but it had been a very pleasant three quarters of an hour.