A trip to Fishers Green didn't reveal any exciting rarities but did yield some suprises. There seemed to be gadwall everywhere, far more than the tufties or mallard, I don't think that I have ever seen such numbers before. I am not a compulsive list maker but while walking back to the car I did think that I should have been counting. They did prove to be much more timid than the more usual waterfowl. They would fly off if they became aware of me on the path even at quite long distances. Apart from that there were the usual suspects with coot, mute swans black headed gulls, great crested grebes, canada geese and cormorants as well as the mallards and a handful of tufted duck and only one pair of pochard.
There had clearly been some late broods as there were juvenile coot and great crested grebe around. The latter were still in their striped plumage. An odd sight was Holyfield Weir which was lined from end to end by canada geese. A marked change from the usual row of assorted gulls.
Back home I was suprised by an absence of red kites on a walk, which made me think that it was only about 5 years ago that they were not regularly coming east of Great Missenden. Now it is unusual not to see one around Ley Hill or Botley. Eventually one did fly across and vanish somewhere in Cowcroft Wood. A few minutes later a buzzard flew in the opposite direction which was a little more unusual.
A few days earlier, when driving back from a visit to Bracknell, I saw a pair of kites above the southern outskirts of Windsor. Something that I never saw when I worked on Slough 13 years ago.
With some cold dry weather there has been a lot of activity on the feeders this weekend. With three different robins visiting the garden there have been fewer fights than I would have expected. The sight of the weekend has been a robin regularly visiting the starling feeder with a pair of beady eyes peeping over the top of the fat bar. As I had run out of sunflower hearts I topped up the ground hopper with pinhead oatmeal which seems to have been very popular. I even had a song thrush inside the cage which is a first. Althogther the weekend has included goldfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, marsh/willow tit (I must learn how to distinguish those), blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wood pigeon. Unusually for this area a heron also flew across the garden during the day. I haven't seen any long tailed tits or greenfinches around here for a while and there wasn't a single house sparrow around during the weekend.
Comments