A showery day

Sunshine and showers, 14°, light to breezy WNW.

After yesterday’s excitement, back to the usual birding along the Bunk line:

A Stonechat, several Redwing, a single Yellow Wagtail and Grey Wagtail and a couple of Pied Wagtail.

2 Grey Heron, 2 Jay, several Meadow Pipit, Blackcap and good numbers of House Martin and to a lesser extent Swallow.

Tony Rayner has reported a Jack Snipe in his garden, present for a couple of days.

Butterflies: a single, possibly a Red Admiral.

Moths: Tony Rayner has recently caught a Clifden Nonpariel (also known as Blue Underwing) in his garden. A fairly rare moth in these parts.

Alan, Paul & Tony R.

Stonechat in the rain

Jack Snipe

A Jack Snipe flushed from near the footpath alongside Cholsey Marsh (per RB).

A Touch of Frost!

Sunny, 2º, light SW, a chilly day after a heavy overnight frost and temp dropped to -7º the night before!

A visit to Lollingdon this afternoon with thrushes feeding in the fields and scattered all around the area.

c200 Fieldfare, c100 Redwing, c60 Blackbird, 20+ Song Thrush, 2 Mistle Thrush and 80 Starling.

A Jack Snipe flushed from a field and disappeared in usual Jack Snipe fashion, 10 Lapwing flew north over the hill and a ♀ Sparrowhawk causing panic amongst the 200 or so Linnet on the hill.

6 Corn Bunting, 18 Meadow Pipit, 2 Pied Wagtail, 2 Buzzard and 3 Red Kite also noted.

A Muntjac Deer seen.

8 Blackbirds frequenting the garden today along with 5 Mallard, 3 Moorhen, 2 Stock Dove, 2 Collared Dove, at least 10 Wood Pigeon, 1 Blackcap, 2 Carrion Crow, a few Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, 1 Robin, 2 Wren, 2 Dunnock, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, a few Blue Tit and Great Tit, 3 Long-tailed Tit and a Pheasant walked past the garden but did not enter.

♀ Blackcap and a Sparrowhawk in TW’s garden today (TW, JL).

 Song Thrush

Redwing

Linnet

 Lapwing

 Blackbird & Chaffinch in the garden (Loren)

Moorhen

Still quiet

Sunny, 6º, light WNW, still chilly.

Still rather quiet out at Lollingdon, a few scattered flocks of Fieldfare and Redwing, around 100 birds in total.

A single Mistle Thrush on the hill with other thrushes and the odd Meadow Pipit and Pied Wagtail.

2 Jay , a Green Woodpecker, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker and not much else of note.

100+ Golden Plover still around the Cholsey hill area.

A flock of 30 Teal flushed from Amwell spring over the weekend and a Jack Snipe close to the Thames out in the Winterbrook area (per TW).

Walk to Wallingford

Sunny, 8º, light SE.

A walk in to Wallingford today along the Bunk Line and through Winterbrook, a pleasant day but still muddy and wet everywhere.

The highlight of the day was a Jack Snipe flushed from a flooded field next to Green lane, typical of that species low direct and silent flight when flushed, flew around one hundred metres up the field and disappeared near the hedgerow adjacent to the railway, also five Lapwing in the same field.

A flock of roughly two hundred Fieldfare and a couple of Redwing at Winterbrook and one hundred plus Pied Wagtail at Cholsey SF, also two Song Thrush there and ten Black-headed Gull.

The Thames still high and the banks are still not walkable in most places and a partially sunken boat near the mouth of Bradford Brook. A lot of Black-headed Gull feeding on bread by Wallingford Bridge.

As I was typing this out late afternoon I noticed a Siskin feeding on one of the nut feeders in the garden, could not get a photo as the sun was shining directly in to my windows at that time of day. The Pheasant still turning up for a late afternoon feed.

Casualty of the floods?

The Thames path at Wallingford leading to Benson

 

Black-headed Gulls at Wallingford Bridge

Lapwings

Unexpected garden visitors.

Cloudy, 4º, light NNW, cooler, back to winter next week with snow forecast.

A couple of unexpected visitors to the garden today, two cock Pheasants appeared early afternoon and stayed for the rest of the day and a Rabbit made a brief appearance. Pheasant has been seen in the adjacent meadow before but not in the garden and the Rabbit is a first; the Rabbit now makes twelve mammal species seen in or from the garden.

Other birds in the garden today were several Lesser Redpoll briefly, two Stock Dove, a Song Thrush and another brief visit from a ♀ Blackcap, ten plus Goldfinch and over a dozen Chaffinch and there were two Magpie present in the front garden.

An adult ♀ and a juvenile ♀ Muntjac Deer in the garden again this evening, the juv being about one third smaller and paler (esp on the nape and upper back) than the adult.

Some news from the South Moreton floods recently were of up to one hundred Common Snipe and a single Jack Snipe seen, a Ruff and a Dunlin also noted and again up to a thousand Lapwing and similar numbers for Golden Plover.

Also four Raven (two pairs) in what could have been a territorial dispute in Cholsey recently.

Thanks to Michael Pocock, Tony Williams and Geoff Wyatt for information.

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