A fine and calm Sunday morning in between a prevailing westerly airflow that has otherwise delivered rather dank autumnal weather. Saturday was spent on taxi duties and a small garden tidy up and this morning I had a free window until 10ish before I had to take Adie to Hockey.
This time last year we had a very settled weather pattern with a long period of Easterly or North easterly winds and Blackdown had a record count of Ring Ouzels, the equivalent Sunday last year I saw 70+ birds in a morning. But as we know, every year is different.
After a restless night (and a lot of
Tawny Owl activity outside the bedroom window) I was at at Blackdown shortly after 7am with official sunrise at 7.14am. Walking out from the car several
Siskin and 2
Lesser Redpoll were seen and a small flock of 13
Linnet flew out from cover. Finches had obviously been moving overnight. Also
Meadow Pipit which were flying around in small groups, 4
Swallows and a
Pied Wagtail (only migrants occur here) and a single
Redwing, my first of the autumn.
I caught up with Dave Burgess who was staking out a Whitebeam tree where he had seen a couple of Ring Ouzels yesterday. Another difference to a year ago is the amount of available berries on the sight. Last year the Rowans were bursting with ripe berries and there were several Rowans with sufficient full crops to keep the Ouzels happy. This year the Rowans had a limited crop and it was all spent by the end of August. There appears to be one berry-laden Whitebeam on the whole site, these trees seem very sporadic and unpredictable which years they bare fruit.
We did see a very large
Lesser Redpoll flock, well over 100 birds and as usual very flighty.a
Sparrowhawk and
Kestrel kept the Crows entertained and a calling
Woodlark was moving very high but unsighted. A few
Blackbirds were flying through and
2 Mistle Thrush landed in the Whitebeam, shortly followed by an immature
Ring Ouzel, which was the only one of the morning. A few of the local birds were seen including
2 Stonechat and
3 Dartford Warbler and
3 Chiffchaff were counted.
I returned home having around an hour before the hockey run and in the relative warmth sat outside with a coffee, both
Goldcrest and
Firecrest made an appearance and the
Blackbird theme continued with
14 Blackbirds flying West . A couple of
Bullfinch and a flock of
c30 Goldfinch and a
Pied Wagtail made it an entertaining coffee break.
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| Harvest Moon |
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| Sunrise at Blackdown |
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| Ring Ouzel in flight |
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| Immature Ring Ouzel |
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| This was a small bit of the c120+ Redpoll flock, not exactly photogenic |
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| Ouzel in the Whitebeam |
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