Sunday 3 November 2024

3rd November 2024

A good weekend’s birding in the village. It started with signs of the first sustained passage of Fieldfares, around 120 birds flew high over with a further fifty noisily occupying the trees on Langlands. Plenty of Redwings and Blackbirds too and, more surprisingly, a marked influx of Song Thrushes with 20+ jumpy birds in a small area of hedgerow…

Waterfowl moving too with two skeins of Pinkfeet north over the village totalling 157 birds…

A single Whooper Swan, the first Teal (seven) of the Autumn and, surprisingly, my first Little Grebes of the year with two on the river…

But undoubtedly the best bird, and a complete surprise, was a female/immature Red-breasted Merganser! I almost didn’t give it any scrutiny assuming it to be one of the regular Goosanders. Unsurprisingly, this was a new bird for the village but arrived as part of a small local influx with five more birds seen at Nosterfield.

As I headed up past Swalefields Farm there were even more Redwings around the trees here. I thought I heard a Hawfinch but couldn’t find it. Fortunately, I photographed a large flock of Redwing as they lifted from a tree. Downloading the photo at home there was the Hawfinch (it’s the left hand bird - honest!)…

This is yet another new village bird for me!

To finish off today I went to see a couple of long-staying Short-eared Owls at Thornborough…

Excellent views and joined by a cracking Barn Owl.

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