Two quite different days but just a couple of miles from one another, especially when it came to winter thrushes.
Walking along the gated road from the church in Nether Worton there were flock upon flock of mixed redwing and fieldfare. As has been the case for much of the autumn and winter, fieldfare have outnumbered redwing and today was about 3:1. We were surprised by the lack of tit flocks in the hedgerows but by the bridge at the end of the road we did find two goldcrest - too mobile to catch a decent photo.
A grey heron fed in the field beyond.
A flock of c.70 starling fed in the fields and some flocks of small birds passed but unfortunately against the setting sun - no call, no ID.
On the following day we tried a new walk around Great Tew Estate. Not a single winter thrush was seen. As you'd expect there were numbers of corvids with 149 rook noted, most (c.101) in a single flock.
When we reached the road we found four red-legged partridge and a single mistle thrush. While I have seen increased numbers of song thrush this year, I've struggled to see any mistle.
Almost back to the car park we came across a roost of red kite with eleven birds already there - we assume that the two birds we'd spotted earlier were in this number.
Finally, as we were entering the village, Charlotte spotted a nuthatch. There was a garden with a feeder opposite and so it was likely visiting that. A good way to wrap up our 2020 birding walks. Species included: black-headed gull, blackbird, blue tit, buzzard, carrion crow, chaffinch, coal tit, fieldfare, goldcrest, goldfinch, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, grey heron, house sparrow, jackdaw, kestrel, long-tailed tit, mallard, mistle thrush, nuthatch, pheasant, red kite, red-legged partridge, redwing, robin, rook, starling, stonechat, woodpigeon and wren.
No comments:
Post a Comment