Some times Halloween feels like Halloween. An autumnal build up with autumn colours and the smell of bonfires with carved pumpkins. This year, for whatever reason and despite the clocks going forward to gain the extra daylight at the start of the day, it just hasn't had the vibe. The wet weather over the last 10 days has probably contributed. Remaining mild, the rainy spells have largely out-weighed a decent dry period. Throw in some covid in the house and mornings when the misty fog hasn't cleared until midday, it's just felt a little weird.
I've attempted, more than once, to try Black Down for better views of Ring Ouzels, twice to be thwarted by fog when it didn't look foggy at all before arriving. This morning was my final attempt for October, the cloud was uncertain but I could see the edge of Black Down from home which is normally a good sign , so went there around 8am. My parking route at the northern end was blocked by a refuse truck so I went to the main car park, walking out with just a couple of calling Coal Tits it felt reasonably quiet. From the first viewpoint it looked like the mist was staying in the valleys below, but one Stonechat later the cloud rolled in again although not too thickly.
The birds had definitely thinned out, with only a handful of Fieldfare and Redwing. About 25 Lesser Redpoll were still present and a flock of c12+ Brambling with a few Chaffinch were feeding with several Blackbirds in a Whitebeam when I saw a Ring Ouzel with them. All a little distant, but unusually for here I had my scope with me so managed reasonable views of what was probably a 1W male. My decent camera lens is off at the repair shop at the moment, so I'm making do with an old and slightly battered one.
The quiet theme has continued at home. There are very few birds visiting the feeders as yet this autumn and the few flocks of Woodpigeon heading off South that I've seen here have barely reached 150, unlike the thousands seen in previous years, a bird that I regularly ignore for most of the year has it's one moment normally around the start of November when they form into spectacular numbers. A diminishing flock of mainly Siskin have been in the Alders, it now seems to be around 10 birds and a few Lesser Redpoll are with them. An occasional Grey Wagtail drops in, but the highlight was a very brief Kingfisher visiting the pond on Sunday morning.
Storm Cairan is due to arrive on Thursday and with promised damaging winds and full of rain. On Friday I am due to go to Spurn for a few days, although from a birding point of view the weather looks on the challenging side with strong winds from the wrong direction laced with rain... but you never know !
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| Mist in the valleys clear on top ? |
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| ... but it remained clear enough |
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| Slightly distant Ring Ouzel |
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| Ring ouzel (left) with Blackbird in Whitebeam. |
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