Saturday morning I headed Dungeness to catch-up with a few more winter birds, to be honest I found nithing ground breaking but enjoyed a morning out and about remaining relatively dry! A quick sea watch produced a few GANNET, lots of GUILLEMOT and just 1 RAZORBILL as well as KITTIWAKE, RED THROATED DIVERS and loads of more of the common gull species. On the reserve large numbers of wildfowl included half a dozen SMEW, all female and several GOLDENEYE. A BLACK THROATED DIVER was on New Diggings and a couple of GREAT WHITE and LITTLE EGRETS were around the reserve and a KINGFISHER flew passed Hanson Hide a quick look for the Black Necked Grebe proved fruitless although time wasn't on my side. A look at Scotney did produce the LONG TAILED DUCK which is always a nice bird to encounter, lastly a look along Caldicott Lane didn't produce the Bewicks I was hoping for.
This morning a look at the local patch for a couple of hours, again in some nice light and generally pleasant conditions albeit a bit muddy, did produce one new bird for the year a wintering
CHIFFCHAFF (59). Other birds today included 9 GREENFINCH, the best count for over a year! 1 COMMON SNIPE, 2 KESTREL, 1 SPARROWHAWK, 3 BUZZARD, 5 BULLFINCH and reasonable count of 15 BLACKBIRDS, there were only 1 each of SISKIN and REDPOLL.
It was nice to go to the hide and sit for a while to see if any birds had found the little feeding station the ranger had put up, after a while a GREAT TIT and 2 BLUE TITS visited the new feeders!
Here are a couple of pics from the last couple of days
.jpg) |
| Great White Egret |
.jpg) |
| Guillemot |
.jpg) |
| Kittiwake |
.jpg) |
| Gadwall and Wigeon |
.jpg) |
| Fieldfare |
.jpg) |
| Fieldfare |
.jpg) |
| Great Tit on new feeding area from the hide |
.jpg) |
| Feeding Station |
12 comments:
Sounds like a wonderful day! Those are great flight shots!
We had a Great White Egret in one of our wet New Forest fields, one morning at the beginning of all the January storms. A beautiful bird, although it caused consternation among our New Forest ponies who had never seen anything like it!
If it turns a bit colder those feeders will be interesting Alan ;-)
Like that ''Fieldfare in flight'' shot
Nice pictures ,great flight shots!
Nice Pics Alan, must pay that hide another visit soon !
Alan....The Smew has become something of a rarity in our area and your five tend to turn me a shade of green.
Enjoyed reading your account and viewing your images.
Six Smew I see on the re-read Alan, that makes me an even deeper shade of green.
What a great selection of birds Alan! Love the Gadwall flight shot mate
What a great selection of birds Alan! Love the Gadwall flight shot mate
Fieldfare shot is stunnig!
Difficult!
Gr. John
Nice that you've managed to make Alan the Great White Egret flying but Fieldfare has become a wonderful photo. You gull, geese and other birds in flight are also pretty successful. It is alstig to fotgraferen the birds. Vleigend You great tit to feed silo is fun :-)
Greetings, Helma
Great flight shots.
Post a Comment