Bunk & Lollingdon

Mainly cloudy with rain late afternoon, 8°, breezy SSE.

A Woodcock found by Brian Wyatt today along the Bunk line area. First for this year.

10 Lapwing on the floods out at Lollingdon, the usual Fieldfare and Redwing, a few Meadow Pipit, 2 Stonechat and a Yellowhammer.

A flock of approx. 500 Corvid nearby and a Chiffchaff in the Millennium Wood.

Still a bit cold

Another sunny but cold day. 0°, light NNW.

Alan out along the “Long Ditch” area and myself along the Bunk line.

Whilst along the Bunk I bumped in to Roger Wyatt who was also out birding and had found a Chiffchaff at CSW and a Woodcock nearby.

Not much else noted other than a Sparrowhawk, a few Fieldfare and Redwing and several Skylark.

Alan on the other hand found 4 Stonechat, a Water Rail, several Reed Bunting and Corn Bunting, 20+ Skylark, c25 Lapwing over and a flock of c20 Golden Plover.

Woodcock courtesy Roger Wyatt

Grey Partridge courtesy Roger Wyatt

Golden Plover courtesy Alan  ↕

Grey Heron courtesy Alan

Another grey day

Overcast, 5°, light SSW.

Another grey day and a Moorhen appeared in the garden and a Pheasant flew over

The female Blackcap still visiting and being very feisty with other birds, chasing off all comers including the Robin and Nuthatch.

A Woodcock flushed yesterday near the path from the Bullshole to the Church. Per Mitchell Fraser-Jones. And a Barn Owl seen over Cholsey Hill. Per Hugh Pope.

Moorhen

Great-spotted Woodpecker breaking in to a bird house, courtesy Bill Nicholls

Still quiet

Sunny but clouding over, 8°, breezy SSW.

Still pretty quiet out at Lollingdon, the most notable was a Woodcock flushed from a ditch almost the same spot as last winter.

Fewer thrushes around than earlier in the week but still 5 species noted.

A Kingfisher, 9 Yellowhammer, 30+ Linnet and a couple of Bullfinch, 6 Buzzard also noted.

A Barn Owl still present along the Bunk line and a Peregrine took a Song Thrush in the same area (per TW).

A Woodcock & Whoopers

Sunny spells with a few rain showers, 9°, mod SW.

Pretty quiet on the hill today, a flock of 200+ Fieldfare feeding in the fields to the south and a scattering of Fieldfare and Redwing elsewhere.

A Woodcock flushed from a ditch that flew off west.

23 Yellowhammer and 14 Chaffinch feeding in a field to the north, also a flock of 80+ Starling.

2 Siskin flew over with a small flock of Goldfinch.

The Whooper Swans still present on Cholsey Hill and a small flock of c20 Golden Plover.

A ♀ Great-spotted Woodpecker frequenting the garden.

Short-eared Owl and Woodcock

Sunny spells and getting colder, 6°, light to mod WNW.

Some info from TW.

A Short-eared Owl seen today out by the Lees and also a Woodcock there earlier in the week.

2 Barn Owl seen, 1 along the Bunk line and another out Lollingdon way.


Thanks Tony.

Chiffchaff still present out at Lollingdon, The Lees and Cholsey Marsh.

2 Nuthatch , a Great-spotted Woodpecker and Coal Tit still frequenting the garden this week.

A non-event, a surprise and some butterflies.

Overcast at first then hazy sunshine, 10°, light WNW.

Well the eclipse was somewhat of a non-event this morning with thick cloud cover and the light levels getting slightly duller than they previously were; Oxford and Abingdon is not far from here and some people were tweeting some good pics of it!!!!! An hour later, the cloud broke here and the sunshine came through, looks like it was a hit or miss situation.

Anyway enough of cosmic phenomena and back to wildlife.

A relatively quiet visit to the hill this afternoon, a few Corn Bunting and Skylark in song and a handful of Starling present. Around 20 Pied Wagtail and 6 Meadow Pipit still present with the sheep. Several Buzzard and Red Kite in the air and a Kite keeping an eye on me.

Back down on the north side there were around 100 Fieldfare, 5 Redwing moving through, a Chiffchaff in song and 5 Lapwing present.

A surprise of a Woodcock flushed from a ditch was a nice find.

Several butterfly species around today also with Peacock, Comma and Brimstone all noted.

An interesting record of a Hummingbird Hawkmoth seen in Moulsford in early March.

Woodcock

Eastender flushed a Woodcock from his garden meadow yesterday 21^st Feb, second record for his garden.

November Rain.

Overcast, 6º, light NW, chilly!

Managed to get out today to blow some cobwebs away, very muddy and wet underfoot and quite a few fields with small to large areas flooded and the Thames is just above the level of July 2007 and has burst its banks but well short of 2003 levels.

The Thames path is under water virtually all the way from the Four Arches railway bridge to Wallingford.

A rather soggy walk out to Lollingdon, plenty of Fieldfare and Redwing around plus several Song Thrush, Mistle Thrush and fifty plus Blackbird, Redwing numbers on a par with Fieldfare today.

Good numbers of Meadow Pipit (100+) and Pied Wagtail (50+) around the flooded fields, several Common Snipe in the fields and a single Woodcock flushed from a ditch near Lollingdon.

A single Golden Plover flew north over Lollingdon hill and flew towards Cholsey hill where it probably joined the flock around the floods at South Stoke. The Linnet flock on Lollingdon hill numbering around eighty at the moment.

A lot of Gulls around the floods, Lesser Blackback Gull being in the majority with five hundred plus, two hundred plus Black-headed Gull and a single Herring Gull noted.

The fields between Aston Tirrold and the Lees were very quiet, a few Carrion Crow, Skylark and a single Buzzard.

A Sparrowhawk around Cholsey church and Fourteen Buzzard and ten Red Kite seen on the walk.

Cholsey marsh is mostly under water and not much seen there apart from several Mallard and a couple of Teal.

Twelve Roe Deer seen in total in various places.

The view from Cholsey hill towards South Stoke was bustling with Gulls and Plovers, no accurate counts as too distant but Lapwing and Golden Plover noted, probably up to three thousand birds in the area at max times with many Gulls augmenting the totals stopping off for a wash and brush up before flying to roost.

A rather large Hedgehog in the garden on Monday night cleaning up under the bird feeders and two Stock Dove feeding in the garden still.

Tony Williams had a Kingfisher by the moat at the Manor house in Lollingdon today.

Some pics of the local floods.

                                   Lollingdon

                                   Outskirts of Cholsey at Church road

                                   Cholsey Marsh

                                  Ferry road

                                  Thames path at Bow Bridge

                             The Thames is actually to the left of the hedge.

 

                                  View upstream from Wallingford Bridge.

                                   View downstream from Wallingford bridge

                                  The Boathouse pub/restaurant

                                        On a par with the July 2007 flood

       above/below view of the floods at South Moreton from Cholsey Hill

Winter Thrushes and a Woodcock

Overcast, light rain, 11º, light to fresh SSW.

A small flock of 16 Redwing in the meadow and 20+ Chaffinch. 11 Black-headed Gulls on the school playing field.

Lollingdon Hill hosted 1 Meadow Pipit, not surprising as a female Sparrowhawk flew the length of the south side and probably flushed most things. However 5 Red Kite and 2 Buzzard overhead there.

2 Common Snipe and a Woodcock flushed from some ditches in the area, several Great-spotted Woodpeckers seen with one drumming.

A large flock of c600 Winter Thrushes nearby with Fieldfare outnumbering Redwing by a ratio of approx 20 to 1.
6 Song Thrush and 4 Mistle Thrush also seen.

Several smaller flocks of winter thrushes also seen, maybe around 1000+ birds altogether, the most I've seen for a while in the area.

A single Reed Bunting seen out on the farmland, several Skylark and a few more Meadow Pipits.

13 Roe Deer seen in 3 separate groups.

Cholsey 17th Nov

Sunny, 14º, light SW.

Lollingdon Hill.

A Kestrel, 3 Red Kite and 2 Buzzard around the hill, also 2 falconers with a Harris Hawk hunting rabbits. They had also put up 2 Woodcock nearby.

Also met a person by the hill who was into “geocaching”, apparently there were 2 items near Lollingdon Hill to be found!

Flocks of Fieldfare and Redwing still passing through and several Skylark around.

Cholsey Marsh at dusk.

Around 50 Corn Bunting roosting at the marsh so far, I expect this to increase as winter progresses.

Also 2 Water Rail heard, 1 on the riverbank and 1 on the marsh and quite a few winter thrushes (Fieldfare and Redwing) around.

I have also emailed BBOWT asking if they have a management plan for Cholsey Marsh.

A couple of Goldcrest along Church rd and a pair of Mallard in the garden.

Red Kite carrying a big stick, flew around for a few minutes with it then dumped it.

Just thought I would include this pic of a Snow Bunting I found near the Ridgeway at Letcombe Bassett on Tuesday.