November. The trees are almost leafless now, the nights are dark and the area has a quiet wintry feel to it. Still, the past two weeks locally have been quite good really. There have been no rarities but a few birds have been moving through that should cheer up the most brow beaten of local patch watchers
The month opened with a dozen Bramblings under Beech trees along our lane and there were still two Pipistrelles out feeding at dusk.
On the 4th the incongruous sighting of 3 Coal Tits leaving village gardens at dawn and flying off high into the sky and out of sight was a thought provoker while a flock of 6 deep calling Redpolls flying south over head were likely Mealies. 21 Whooper Swans flew low S over our village in the afternoon, adding to the melancholy feel with their soft trumpeting calls.
We had a short visit of 3 miles along to Boulmer on Guy Fawkes where we had some nice viz migging and seawatching with 2 Snow Buntings S, 1 Twite S, 800 Pinkfeet S, 12 Puple Sandpipers, 27+ Bar tailed Godwits, 60+ Knot, 8 Red throated Divers N and 3 S, 1 Great Northern Diver N, 1 ad Little Gull N and a drake Pintail dropped in to the shore Wigeon flock.
The next morning at home viz mig had picked up with 44 Siskin, 11 Redpoll, 1 Twite, 2 Crossbill and 10 Whooper Swans all S. These were just the appetiser as an hour later 2ad and a juv Russian White fronted Goose flew low over our garden nicely lit by the morning sunshine. Only my 2nd record here after a few in the good year for them of 2010. In addition were 750 Pinkfeet S over head too.
Another 2 Mealy Redpoll called loudly overhead on the 7th.
A few local patch walks from home this weekend in quite nice weather, Pre Storm Debi, had 9 Crossbills, 4 Blackcaps, 1 Chiffchaff, 21 Whooper Swans, 300 Pink feet, 1 drake Goosander S, 1 f Long tailed Duck with 4 Goldeneye and 7 Common Scoter at the burn mouth and, saving best til last, 3 Waxwings, 1 with 20 Redwings behind the Cricket Hut then 2 in the Village Hall car park all too briefly before flying off SW. These are my 5th of autumn but all have been in a hurry to move on. Do they know something we dont?
Is it time to start Christmas Shopping I wonder?
2 comments:
Despite the rain and wind here in Somerset many trees are only now turning autumnal and shedding leaves. As you ended your previous blog post seeing snow bunting, phalarope and hummingbird hawkmoth, our seasons do seem to be both blurring and shifting a few weeks. Here I've noticed winter now doesn't really begin until January but by then the days are lengthening and by early March it's over. How this will affect wildlife long term we will see, though you've no doubt read of the WWT year on year decline in Bewick swans coming to the UK. But then this week I saw an ivy patch in flower with a great hum of bees and hover flies. Interesting times to be observing nature.
I agree Andrew, things have altered slightly here. While your winters have shortened ours have just moved. From December it remains cold until 2nd week of June! This sounds an exaggeration but my moth trapping bears this out. Spring is a cold period here on the coast and it can take until June to get a night time temp above 8 degrees. Often it can be as low as 4 degrees over night late May / early June and snow is a regular if fleeting event in April.
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