Hello again, two blogs in one day…or at least sort of. If you have no idea what I am on about then here’s a link to a blog I published earlier. It’s a ‘blog special’ and is written by visitor Jonathan Marshall. It is well worth a read and it also has a few lovely photos.
Off I go with the sightings from today from some of our satellite sites.
Alan Stonier was at Edderthorpe and spoke of the birds being ‘spooky.’ That might well be as Halloween is coming up…or not… He saw: 7 little egrets, 2 ruff, 10 dunlin, a snipe, approx. 200 golden plover and approx. 400 lapwing, a green woodpecker, a pintail, 6 tufted ducks and 8 pochard.
John Seeviour was at Bolton Ings today and saw a male and female stonechat but not much else…his words!
Actually, that’s it from the satellite sites so on to the sightings from today at Old Moor.
Wath Ings – Here today we have a dunlin, 6 ruff and 4 green sandpipers and later on the numbers changed to 10 dunlin, 5 ruff and 4 green sandpipers. A small influx of dunlin there… Also a sparrowhawk which no doubt cleared a few birds for a while.
On a ‘walk to the reedbeds’ we have sightings of pochard, tufted ducks, shoveler, mute swan, coots, mallards, wigeon, teal, cormorants, great tits and blue tits.
A buzzard was seen over the woods and yesterday, one was preening in the cuckoo tree.
From the reedbed screen we have sightings (and/or hearings) of a kestrel, a Cetti’s warbler and a sparrowhawk. No sightings of flashes of brilliant blue here today but I’m sure that they weren’t far away. From the reedbed hide we have snipe, tufted ducks, gadwall, wigeon, little grebe and coots.
Snipe from the Family Hide a couple of days ago.
A water rail was heard and a grey heron was seen from the Bittern Hide today. Two pintail were seen from the Wader Scrape and a Cetti’s was heard from behind the Family Hide.
Sightings from the bird garden today were of all the current usual suspects – chaffinches, bullfinches, goldfinches, great tits, blue tits, robin, magpies, long tailed tits, collared doves and a wren.
The male bullfinches are starting to look pretty good! There are regular sightings of them in the bird garden and the TSF.
Finally for today are the sightings from the Tree Sparrow Farm: chaffinches, bullfinches, goldfinches, great tits, blue tits, robin, magpies, long tailed tits, collared doves and pheasants. I’m pretty sure that the male sparrowhawk will have been around there somewhere too.
If you have been going to the TSF in search of a view of this male sparrowhawk, then look in the trees directly opposite the screen here. It seems to sit in this area very regularly, and also for quite long periods of time, as it works out where the best place might be to catch a meal. I have been lucky enough to spend a little time a lot of time watching it over the last three days.
Our thinking is that it is a juvenile and that's why it is sitting for so long - on some occasions well over an hour. It doesn't seem at all interested in the pigeons and collared doves. Each time I have watched it, it has tried to catch smaller birds from the feeders or table. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Yesterday it hid the tress very close to the right of the screen/hide here. It was pretty much out of sight and obstructed by the branches. If we'd had a good view of it, then it preened, took no notice of incoming birds (although they soon scarpered when they saw it) and eventually flew off in the direction of a feeder and nearly flew through one of the windows here. Exciting stuff!
It also seems to like landing on the logs near the little pond. Twice I have seen it do this and each time it had a poo, and then flew off.:)
That's it for today unless you know of anything different. If you do, then do please let us know via a comment below. Thank you :)