Saturday, October 31, 2009

Saturday 31st October 2009

Made an early start and was in the hide 06:30. Sadly it was raining shortly after and I feared I may be spending the whole day in the hide as the rain seemed set in for the day. Fortunately there was some interest during the morning with at least 9 Teal to and fro and several visits by a Kingfisher. A few small parties of Redwing were seen about. A couple of Little Grebe were at the south end of West Fingers and there were 36 Mute Swans on the main lake plus the 5 on Fingers. From the north side of the main lake Coot and Great Crested Grebe numbers seemed to be down from the the previous week. Finally the rain relented around 09:00.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

En passant

A little bit of migration going on above our heads today as we were ringing in the Rough.


26+ Sky Larks west from 9am for about an hour; largest group =5. Redwings in small groups coming low, largest 9, and about 50-60 in total; the 3 birds we caught were all "out of fat" and neding a "square meal". Fieldfare - one group of 16 birds in the Fingers. Mipits indifferent at just 4 birds noticed going south. Best movement was a strong, tight group of Wood Pigeons, 125 in all, heading due south at a steady pace against a clear sky.

Also a couple of Siskin heard, a group of 3 Redpoll, some 6 'continental-type' Blackbirds in the Rough, with many more scattered throughout the park, just 2 caught, one of which was a definite "continental", again needing a good breakfast.

We are still catching new Gt. Tits; today it was 9 new and 7 retraps; 7 of the 16 were 'adult' birds, i.e. post-breeders.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Saturday 24th October 2009

It was pretty quiet this morning. A heavy shower pushed through around 9am. Highlights were a couple of Little Grebe on Fingers along with at least 7 Teal. We had single siskin and sky lark over and a couple of male Gadwall on the main lake. Also on the main lake were 30+ Great Crested Grebe and 40+ Coot. There were also a handful of Common Gulls around including a couple of youngsters.