Wednesday 2 February 2011

Misty Morning

We seem to get quite a few misty mornings at the castle, it can be clear at home, about 1 mile away and often misty at the castle, I think it's just to do with the stream running through and temperature etc.. Back to this morning or actually a brief visit in darkness last night. I thought I would listen again for Owls on the way home, I stood for about 40 minutes just listening. Apart from the distant drone of traffic and the odd closer car passed in the lane, it was fairly quiet. There is something almost therapeutic about being out in the dark, especially as it was a very calm evening. I did hear a Snipe at about 5.50pm and another fast flying something a couple of minutes later! A scan round the field with a very average torch did produce a couple of eyes shining back at me on one occasion, a Fox, I would imagine, eventually a Tawny called at around 6.10 and I headed home.
This morning then, as I say it was pretty misty, the Dunnocks were singing well and a Mistle Thrush sang from a stand of aspen. Three Robins chased round the car park and a Green Woodpecker called almost non-stop for the 40 or so minutes I was there. The lakes weren't giving anything away and the usual Siskins and the odd Redpoll were calling as they went over. A few Redwings were feeding in the field near the moat and 5 Blackbirds were gathering the last scraps of rotting fruit under a small apple tree, fairly uneventful really but there is always tomorrow. Stephen got a few pics of the Mealy Redpoll from yesterday, so I've included them here.



Stephens shots of yesterdays 'Mealy/Common'

3 comments:

Rachel J said...

Perseverance paid off for the tawny owl! Thanks for the redpoll ID tips, will check out the website... cheers.

Warren Baker said...

Hi Alan,
Only ever had one Mealy redpoll record, but have had one or two 'possibles'

As for your question about the lakes on my patch, they barely qualify as lakes really. One has a huge ( i mean huge!) house right next to it, I call that the Ornamental lake. Next to it is the Main lake, this has a footpath along it at one end, but is mosly screened by trees, the other lake is the smallest of the 3, and is occasionally fished but it's mostly undisturbed, all the lakes are on private property and I have limited access, but good vision over all of them. :-)

Alan Pavey said...

Hi Warren,

You have a good selection of ducks from those lakes, something that is really lacking at Sissinghurst, do you think it could be the proximity to the Medway or that there are some larger lakes not too far away? Let's hope we both get something else on them soon :-)

Hi Rach,

The worcester bird thing looked really good I haven't managed to read it all yet but I think it will help.