Sunday 5 January 2014

A wet weekend

So the first weekend of January 2014 was wet with gales on the Saturday morning and as usual the species list ticks along at a good rate as I log all the usual species I usually see on my walks but do not usually mention .We added Magpie
                                                   Herring Gull
                                                   Mistle Thrush
                                                   Song Thrush
                                                   Green finch
                                                   Buzzard
                                                   Collared Dove
                                                   House Sparrow
Apart from that it was hard going but a flock of 225 plus Black Headed Gulls on the ever expanding floodwater was nice. On the pastures were 200 plus Starling , 100 plus Redwing, just 10 plus Fieldfare and a nice flock of wintering Skylarks with 28 been seen .
Sunday was a different kettle of fish , bright ,clear and a rare frost. We added a number of species to our year list with Raven
                            Wigeon with a flock of 55 plus over floodwater
                            Mute Swan with 4 flying towards the floods
                            Stock Dove .
The Raven was the first bird of the day so not a bad start, up to 4 Buzzard were around in the calmer conditions .
The 4 Mute Swans flew towards the floodwaters and a distant flock of 55 plus Wigeon  flew downriver . On the edge of the floodwater were 340 plus Black Headed Gulls were feeding ,a few Common Gulls and Lesser Black Backed and Herring Gulls were mixed in .
On the fields and in the hedges were a large flock of 360 plus Redwing , 45 plus Fieldfare and 200 plus Starling .
The first Stock Doves of the year were seen with 8 being present and the wintering flock of Skylark numbered 23 today. It was just a single Meadow Pipit that put in an appearance today and we seem to have lost our Reed Bunting .
So just 5 days into 2014 and we are already on 39 species and there are plenty of regulars that we have not seen yet.