Sunday, 31 October 2010

The first day of winter!

October has been a month of two halves; the first part was hectic with scarce migrants dominating proceedings. The latter was quieter, with overtime at work prevailing.

My last day of October was spent patrolling Ashington and North Seaton for what turned out to be elusive waxwing - not a sniff for me today!

The Cresswell area was rather quiet too - lots of lapwing on the north part of the pond, with a few golden plover, curlew, dunlin in the mix. Wildfowl was limited - c1,000 pink-footed geese flew past in the distant west, while on the pond, wigeon, tufted duck, teal, mallard, goldeneye were noted.

West Hartford looks good for some winter wildfowl, there is a lot of water in the flash - hopefully some duck will arrive soon. The only birds on the flash today were black-headed and common gull. No sign of the hoped for short-eared owl ~ we could do with a good "owl winter" as they have been scarce recently.

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November can still be an exciting time for scarcities... it's not over yet... is it?

1 comment:

abbey meadows said...

I'm still on the lookout for Owls in the Widdrington area; an old favoured haunt but very few recently only Barn and Long Eared singles recently. Love the header John...shrikes are a particular favourite of mine and the Masked at Kilrenny brought back some fond memories of a great birding day out.