Friday 17 October 2014

A-maizing Greys

After a week on the Scillies, desperately trying (and spectacularly failing) to find some heart-stopping vagrants, it was back to the old routine and a couple of hours spent birding Aldcliffe this morning.
Since I last had a root about the patch just over a week ago, the number of teal and mallard have increased notably. The other big change is that the maize has been harvested and the resulting stubble was attracting plenty of avian attention.

 Among the many greylag and Canada geese picking through the dropped corn were 6 pink-footed geese. Another group of 21 pinkfeet were flying around, but decided not to put down in the fields. The number of corvids was through the roof; all carrion crows and jackdaws.
Smaller grain gobblers included around a dozen each of chaffinch and reed bunting, plus 8 skylarks and 6 tree sparrows.
On Freeman's Pools there remain at least 11 little grebe and 6 gadwall along with the regular resident coots, moorhens, mallard etc.
Despite my best efforts I couldn't find a yellow-browed warbler in Freeman's Wood. A non-calling bird would be very tricky to locate at the moment with the amount of leaves still gracing the sycamores and other deciduous trees. The only things of note that I did come across were a couple of redwing and 3 goldcrests. Oh, and a snipe. And 3 roe deer.

Jon

 

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