Sunday 20 February 2011

Keep going . . .


Following the recent Stonechat, further signs of early movement were noted at the patch today. The highlight was a single Curlew that dropped into Broad Field, calling, and departed a few minutes later, still strongly calling (second site record, following my flock of six in December). Of course, the day I don't bring my SLR because it has finally refused to work at all, a patch mega flies past me less than one hundred metres away . . . (see extremely poor 'point and hope' digiscoped flight shot above)

Also a couple of Meadow Pipits went through, the first in quite a while. We usually get at least a couple wintering but not this season. Three Little Owls were located and I had a couple of male Bramblings in the morning with about four hundred Chaffinches, not far away from Norm the Common Buzzard who was busy eating worms, I haven't seen his associate Whitey in a while. Johnny Allan and Paul Goodman joined me in search of the big flock of Redpolls I had yesterday but we only located fifteen or so, they got two of the Little Owls though.

Hopefully it won't be too long until we get a Black Redstart, or, preferably for me, a Firecrest (still need it for CFBW).