Saturday 2 January 2016

Short Day Count SP55

Hello

Local birds today included a Barn Owl between the villages of Scaldwell and Hanging Houghton early this morning and Blueberry Farm at Maidwell again hosted the female Peregrine, a Barn Owl and a pair of Stonechat.

Further afield and a Short Day Count in SP55 west of Daventry was enjoyable despite the wet weather. We started at Fawsley Park which provided an excellent selection of winter birds including ca40 Siskins, 3 Lesser Redpolls, a male Brambling, a couple of Tawny Owls, 2 Water Rails and 2 Kingfishers. More typical woodland birds seen included Treecreeper, Nuthatch and Marsh Tit and at least five Ravens flew over. Plenty of gulls were present of four species.

Scanning a weedy field from the minor road between Badby and Catesby villages this afternoon yielded a large flock of finches and buntings which were using the field hedge as a loafing area between bouts of feeding in the field. A good dozen Bramblings were on show and an unexpected single Corn Bunting was perched among the Yellowhammers. A couple of Ravens were on territory too.

A revisit to Fawsley Park this afternoon at about 3.45pm confirmed the absence of the earlier gull flocks. However a single gull flying around the main lake turned out to be another unexpected species in the shape of an adult Little Gull. However this is not unprecedented and is the third time this species has appeared on the Banbury Ornithological Society Day Counts to the west of the county.

Regards

Neil M


Long-tailed Tit

Tree Sparrow

Images courtesy of
Robin Gossage

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