Fly Over Dick's Pipit

It was exceedingly quiet at the feeding station this morning when Kim and I attempted a ringing session. It was flat calm with a ground frost, and at first we had clear skies and by the time we packed up a couple of hours later we nearly had full cloud cover.

We only ringed six birds as follows (recaptures in brackets):

Goldfinch - 2
Robin - 2
Chaffinch - 1
Dunnock - 1 (1)
Blackbird - (1)
Great Tit - (2)

 Goldfinch

 Robin

It was very quiet on the birding front and there are meagre pickings in my notebook with Kestrel, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Song Thrush and Siskin being the highlights except for a fly over Richard's Pipit.

Where we sit at the feeding station it is between a high bramble covered banking and some young Birch/ Scots Pine/Alder woodland. This means that you have a very narrow field of view of anything flying over, particularly if flying north to south or vice versa. This meant that we didn't see the Richard's Pipit, but just heard its loud 'shreep' call! Ian had one on the patch on 31st December and there is a lot of suitable habitat surrounding the feeding station, so it is likely that it is the same bird. It's direction of flight based on the calls was north to south and this would take it from one block of suitable habitat to another.

It's snowing as a type, but this is forecast to peter out later tonight and the forecast doesn't look too bad for the morning so I'll try and get out on the patch somewhere.