Friday 22 August 2014

Still smokin

My little patch of no where continues to bring in the birds and with a day off work Willow and I were out on the patch at 7am this morning. It felt quite Autumnal this morning with a chill in the air and a gusty wind coming in from the north .
 On my way back from Portland Bill yesterday afternoon I noticed good numbers of Swallows feeding in the meadows near Wainlodes  with in excess of 100 plus so it came as no surprise as I reached the top of Magic Hedgerow field that there were a good number of House Martins 70 plus and Swallows 50 plus  feeding and passing over south west , I managed to find a single Sand Martin also ,I have no doubt that there may have been others but the birds were very active and very hard to get a good bead on them .
Overall it seemed as if there were a good number of migrants on the ground this morning with many of the birds been seen away from the usual hot spots .A  great count of at least 17 plus Chiffchaff was made and those were the ones I just saw ,how many more went undetected ? . I could only find 3 Willow Warbler but I have the feeling that I missed many more but apart from that slight disappointment the hedges were offering up some good birds .
I managed to find 3 Lesser Whitethroats , 1Whitethroat, 6 plus Blackcap , 2 Spotted Flycatcher ( after a slow start it has been quite a good year for this species), and best of all I managed to hear a soft bubberling of a migrant Sedge Warbler , it being only the second patch record for this species. This is a year tick for the patch and takes us to 81 species so far this year.
Woodpeckers got in the act with a Green Woodpecker and 2 plus Greater Spotted.
On the raptor front 3 Buzzards, a  female Sparrow hawk and 2 Kestrel put in an appearance .I tried my best to turn one of the Kestrels into a Hobby but it was a Kestrel .I am running out of time to see a Hobby on the patch this year, if I do not see one it will be the first time in a number of years that I have not seen one here.
There were 2 Raven feeding on the harvested Maize fields along with the other corvids ,you really see how large they are when you see up against Crows etc.
The first flock of Starling appeared today with 120 plus ,and a single Skylark lept up from grassland .I only managed 2 Stock Dove today .
 A fellow birder Steve French has remarked how many Goldfinches are around at the moment and it would appear that it has been a good breeding season locally ,you should check out Steves  blog Hartpury Orchard centre blog ,he like myself is a slave to patch birding its nice to know there are other lunatics out there and not just me.
The patch list goes to 81 for the year