November 1st

The moths were a little thinner on the ground today, although an Autumnal Moth was my first of the year and an unexpected find was the scarce immigrant Uresephita Gilvata, which we found while packing the traps away!!

Uresiphita Gilvata - scarce migrant. Thanks to Steve Broyd for the pic.

It seemed like there were birds everywhere today, there were plenty of SKYLARKS  and MEADOW PIPITS calling over the fields despite several short sharp showers during the visit. The thing that was more evident though was the lack of YELLOWHAMMERS, there were around 6 birds flying in and out of the hedges but nothing like the 50 or so that have been around over the last few weeks, unfortunately there was also no sign of any Corn Buntings! so maybe tomorrow? who knows. A REED BUNTING did fly over, they have been a bit less obvious of late. There were several flocks of WOODPIGEONS milling around, a couple of the largest flocks numbered over 200, so there could have been easily 800-1000 birds in all. 4 FIELDFARES flew up from the stubble and a COMMON BUZZARD flew low over Roundshill Wood, seeing this bird made me think the bird at the weekend could well have been a late Honey Buzzard. There were plenty of finches again today mainly REDPOLL, LINNET, CHAFFINCH and SISKIN.