Saturday 14th September - home viewing.

For the first time in a very long while at home, I sat outside this morning for just over an hour (with 2 coffees) and watched for birds. It had an autumnal feel with a slight chill and an increasing cloud build-up - but I was happy !. With all the building work at home over the last 6 months, the feeders have been partially redundant through the summer, and even though I've just filled them again I need to work out the best site for them and the birds for Winter period as I'll probably relocate from the previous hedge-line, so my viewing this morning was at the back of the barn across the field and surrounding trees.

There was a brisk West wind and increasing cloud cover from 8am, but there were enough birds around to keep me busy until I was called into action for the School sports runs. The most impressive was the large number of Swallows moving West - most low flying no more than treetop height. I recorded a steady stream of 137 until 9.15 and given that I wasn't looking across a major flyway then this probably represented a tiny fraction of the numbers moving elsewhere across the south.

In total 32 species was not bad at all. I pretty much cleaned up on corvids - the 12 magpies are a local family group which is constantly harassing anything that moves and there's  a pair of local Ravens I'm beginning to see more frequently.

Jay 2

Magpie 12

Carrion Crow

Rook 2

Raven 1

Jackdaw

Swallow 137

House Martin 6

Great Tit

Blue Tit

Coal Tit

Dunnock 1

Robin 3

Wren 1

Blackbird

Buzzard 1

Green Woodpecker 2

Great spotted Woodpecker 1

Nuthatch 2

Woodpigeon

Stock Dove

Collared Dove 3

Greenfinch 3
Chaffinch

Linnet 1

Siskin 7

Goldfinch 10

Grey Wagtail (h) 1

Bullfinch 2

Willow Warbler 1

Chiffchaff 2

Blackcap 1