Cold, snowy conditions usually mean that there will be something of interest to see. It might not be 'rare', but sometimes good numbers or an unusually scarce bird out in the open for example.
Todays walk produced such a selection. Firstly, the waders in the wet field have increased, with a massive 400 Dunlin there, alongside 30 Golden Plover, 100 Lapwing, 40 Redshank, 5 Snipe and a few Oystercatchers and Curlew.
Further down the track and a Kingfisher flew over the frozen field heading towards the very cold and blustery rock pools. A large manure heap here concentrated 22 Grey Partridges, 50 Skylarks, 10 Linnets and 2 lovely peachy faced Twite. An uncommon bird around here, these two showed very well.
On the return journey, 2 Woodcocks flushed from the field edge near the shore ( I had a flock of 3 together this afternoon at Longhoughton, flying from the roadside at dusk). More small parties of Skylarks, Partridges and Reed Buntings punctuated the closing leg.
A nice wander out thanks to the snow!
As I said, peachy faced creatures, these Twite...
5 comments:
22 Grey Partridges - probably more than we have in the whole of Leics. these days :-(
Stewart,
Brilliant! I'm still waiting for a Twite on my home patch of Broom GPs in Bedfordshire. There have been 2 seen in the last 10 years- so positively rare in these parts.....
Mark - On our coasts we only have Greys, with a very rare Red leg. On the high ground in the Cheviots Red legs are abundant for shooting...
Matt - Twite are mainly coastal birds in winter but you never know, I once found a flock of 40 well inland at the foot of the Cheviot Hills feeding in and around a cow byre...
"As I said, peachy faced creatures, these Twite..." as well as being pretty, if i`m allowed to use such a girlie word ;-)
400 dunlin ?!!! That sounds brilliant Stewart !
I had a couple of small groups of twite (3 + 2) moving south along the coast at Low Newton during the week (perhaps your birds at Howick ?).
This snow has definitely made birding more interesting in places. Like Howick, the wet field at Newton had many waders this week, I counted 110 snipe, only 6 dunlin tho. I'm assuming the snipe will be birds displaced from elsewhere, the hills perhaps ? I counted them in tens when everything was flushed by a peregrine, don’t think I've ever seen 1 flock of snipe that big swirling around the sky before !
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