Lockdown Listing - Lots of Additions!
It's been a great few days for my garden Lockdown List - I've spent a lot of time watching the skies because most additions now will probably come in the form of a flyover, until some warblers arrive.
Wednesday gave a garden first in the form of 2 Grey Herons flying South.
Thursday was a great day for additions. I saw 2 Mallard flying over early morning and then a singing Song Thrush was a long overdue tick. I spent Thursday night sat out on my deck listening in case of a flock of Common Scoter.
Thousands of these birds have been flying over the country in recent days - their movements concentrated in the North of the country but several birders near me have got lucky. This is presumably an annual occurrence but with more people watching their gardens the scale has now been properly documented! Unfortunately, I didn't get lucky and have a flock fly over the garden but it was fun to try a form of birding that's completely new to me, and a calling Coot was a new garden tick and some consolation for the lack of Scoter.
Friday was my first blank day of lockdown so far. No sign of any new ticks and the skies were quiet all day. The highlight of the day came in the evening when I saw lots of Pipistrelle Bats from my bedroom window. We used to have large numbers of these bats but I haven't seen any for months. It's nice to have them back again.
Saturday had been hotly anticipated as a good day for migration. Many birders were looking forward the prospect of the sunny weather and warm southerly airflow throughout the country.
I was out in the garden early to try to see some migrants myself. Of course, I wasn't expecting a migration spectacle but sure enough a few good birds were moving early on. I watched from 7:15 until 8:45 and saw:
15 Redwing
3 Lesser Black-backed Gull
2 Canada Goose
1 Skylark (new for the Lockdown List)
2 Stock Dove (new)
1 Cormorant (new)
1 Lapwing (new)
This brought my lockdown list to an impressive 40 species. My all-time garden list stood at 54 before lockdown started - I wouldn't bet against myself reaching this number in the next few weeks with all of the summer migrants yet to arrive! Surely a Chiffchaff isn't far away?
Looking back at my old records, my sightings of Brambling, Redpoll and Siskin all peak in late March/early April. The feeders have been quiet lately (I'm not really sure why) but one of these 3 species would be fantastic.
Today didn't offer the sunny weather that most of the south of the country seem to be enjoying and not only did that put an end to our barbecue plans, but very few birds were seen flying over either. The highlight came when a very interesting gull species flew over the house at 16:00.
I'm not a gull expert, and although I enjoy the identification challenge they pose, I am rarely completely confident in my conclusion. Especially fly-bys. Even so, this bird flew close by and turned so that I could clearly see the upper parts too, it was reasonably low and from my view I am definitely inclined to say it might have been a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull - the head pattern was perfect and the tail too. If only I had got more on it because that could have been a fantastic lockdown tick!
I'm really hoping one of these days my effort might be rewarded with one of the Red Kites or Osprey which seem to be crossing the country in numbers at the moment. Or maybe a White-Tailed Eagle - one can dream...
Wednesday gave a garden first in the form of 2 Grey Herons flying South.
Thursday was a great day for additions. I saw 2 Mallard flying over early morning and then a singing Song Thrush was a long overdue tick. I spent Thursday night sat out on my deck listening in case of a flock of Common Scoter.
Thousands of these birds have been flying over the country in recent days - their movements concentrated in the North of the country but several birders near me have got lucky. This is presumably an annual occurrence but with more people watching their gardens the scale has now been properly documented! Unfortunately, I didn't get lucky and have a flock fly over the garden but it was fun to try a form of birding that's completely new to me, and a calling Coot was a new garden tick and some consolation for the lack of Scoter.
Friday was my first blank day of lockdown so far. No sign of any new ticks and the skies were quiet all day. The highlight of the day came in the evening when I saw lots of Pipistrelle Bats from my bedroom window. We used to have large numbers of these bats but I haven't seen any for months. It's nice to have them back again.
Saturday had been hotly anticipated as a good day for migration. Many birders were looking forward the prospect of the sunny weather and warm southerly airflow throughout the country.
I was out in the garden early to try to see some migrants myself. Of course, I wasn't expecting a migration spectacle but sure enough a few good birds were moving early on. I watched from 7:15 until 8:45 and saw:
15 Redwing
3 Lesser Black-backed Gull
2 Canada Goose
1 Skylark (new for the Lockdown List)
2 Stock Dove (new)
1 Cormorant (new)
1 Lapwing (new)
 |
| Lots of birds were moving on Saturday |
Looking back at my old records, my sightings of Brambling, Redpoll and Siskin all peak in late March/early April. The feeders have been quiet lately (I'm not really sure why) but one of these 3 species would be fantastic.
Today didn't offer the sunny weather that most of the south of the country seem to be enjoying and not only did that put an end to our barbecue plans, but very few birds were seen flying over either. The highlight came when a very interesting gull species flew over the house at 16:00.
I'm not a gull expert, and although I enjoy the identification challenge they pose, I am rarely completely confident in my conclusion. Especially fly-bys. Even so, this bird flew close by and turned so that I could clearly see the upper parts too, it was reasonably low and from my view I am definitely inclined to say it might have been a juvenile Yellow-legged Gull - the head pattern was perfect and the tail too. If only I had got more on it because that could have been a fantastic lockdown tick!
I'm really hoping one of these days my effort might be rewarded with one of the Red Kites or Osprey which seem to be crossing the country in numbers at the moment. Or maybe a White-Tailed Eagle - one can dream...
Comments
Post a Comment