Sunday 7 December 2014

Back on the Patch ,and one that got away

Life has been getting in the way of the birding for the last couple of weeks and last weekend I went to see England play Australia so again I was not able to cover the patch.
The last couple of weeks has seen a male Peregrine over the patch ,calling Little Owl early one evening ,my first ever garden Jays (2), garden Bullfinch , and a liberal sprinkling of winter Thrushes .The feeders although busy have not brought anything unusual in as the weather has remained for the most part fairly mild ,that been said the last couple of days have been colder.
So Willow and I hit the patch as soon it was semi light ,it was milder with some lively showers moving through .It was obvious that we still had a good number of Blackbirds wintering with us with a final count of 26 plus seen today, but there was one bird that as it shot from my right made a call like a RING OUZEL,  it was not a Fieldfare, Blackbird coloured but I did not get a long enough view to positively ID it .It was gone in a flash and I have seen Ring Ouzel before but I cannot claim it as it was just too quick to get a firm bead on it .It could of been 88 but we remain on 87. It would be very late for a Ring Ouzel but they are still been seen as are other late summer migrants. The one that got away.
Winter Thrush were all over the patch and counts of 45 plus Redwing and 57 plus Fieldfare were nice to see, also present were 7 Song Thrush and 3 Mistle Thrush, have I seen all 5 species of British Thrush this morning ?  we will never know !
Along the hedges a female Stonechat was a good bird to see ,maybe she is wintering with us, others of her kind have since moved on. I managed to find 4 Bullfinch this morning ,including one very near the cottage again . Its also nice to report a Chiffchaff which was hwooeting away in the hedgerow, I could not turn into one of the Siberian variety ,it was just a Chiffchaff  but still a good bird to see. The number of Robins is back to normal levels and unless we get another influx I will not count them again.
The pastures were quiet with just 3 each of Meadow Pipit and Skylark (although I did see a flock of 9 yesterday) ,  Stock Dove numbered only 4 . There was a flock of 120 plus Starling  feeding on sheep pasture . Around the dung heaps 3 Pied Wagtails were feeding .
Overhead a Raven passed over ,and 3 Buzzards were floating about .Other Raptors seen were a male Kestrel and a superb Peregrine that made an unsuccessful attempt at some Woodpigeons
The best of the rest were a Green Woodpecker.
With the weather turning colder lets hope for the big one before the years end.