Saturday, September 28, 2013

Saturday Sun

The egrets had already left the Pilling roost this morning. It must have been the bright sunny start which set them on their way. The roost breaks up into small groups which spend a short time on the marsh before heading separate ways - 22 birds this morning. 

Little Egrets - Pilling Marsh

I didn’t wait for the Pink-footed Geese to leave the marsh as I would see plenty in the next three or four hours, in fact a large count of as many as 6,500 in total. The picture below shows just a small fraction of the geese about this morning. 

 Pink-footed Geese - Pilling Marsh

There was a Kestrel along Backsands Lane and a Sparrowhawk heading rapidly south. I’ve seen more Sparrowhawks in the last day or three than almost the whole of the summer and I imagine that the recent ones are migrants. 

Fluke Hall to Pilling Water proved very productive, mainly due to the number of birds about Hi-Fly’s land. I don’t think there’s been a shoot yet judging by the huge numbers of Red-legged Partridge still frequenting the fields and the maize crop. I haven’t seen many large raptors around so maybe the partridge numbers are still circa 2000, the number released for "sport" some weeks ago. I did see singles of both Peregrine and Buzzard at Fluke Hall but apparently showing no interest in the partridges. 

Red-legged Partridge

Red-legged Partridge

There were good numbers of Skylarks on the fields and a steady stream of Meadow Pipits going over, the mipits heading east along the sea wall. My notebook records 24 Skylarks and 160 Meadow Pipits in 3+ hours. The maize crop and ditch held more than 10 Reed Buntings too, as well as 3 Jays paying a flying visit and looking for an easy meal. It was while watching their antics with the Jackdaws that I caught sight of a Kingfisher flying rapidly along the ditch towards Fluke Hall. 

Reed Bunting

Meadow Pipit

Wildfowl numbers on the shooting pools, and without counting the many tame Mallards - 40+ Wigeon, 300+ Teal 300, 1 Cormorant, 1 Black-tailed Godwit and 1 Green Sandpiper. 

Wigeon

Wigeon and Teal

Other ‘bits and bobs’ - 1 Wheatear, 1 Chiffchaff, 15 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Siskin. 

The sun brought out a good few butterflies whereby even I can identify a Speckled Wood, one of several found naturally enough in Fluke Hall Wood. 

Speckled Wood

Another Bird Blog is linking today to Camera Critters  and to Anni's Blog .

13 comments:

Carletta said...

Looks like a wonderful day Phil!
Great shot showing the number of geese.
Love the shot of the Wigeon! One wings up, one wings down. Perfect timing. :)
Love that little butterfly too.

carol l mckenna said...

Beautiful wildlife photography ~ love the red legged kestrel? ~ Great shots ~ carol ^_^

Unknown said...

That Mipit shot is first class, Phil. Make an excellent birdy Xmas card!

Unknown said...

Sounds like a great day! I love the butterfly.

Anni said...

6500...in one instance/area?!! That would be so mind boggling.

Great images Phil...as always. AND...as always, informative commentary.

Karen said...

Quite a sky full of birds! Love the Pipit, and the flight shots of the Wigeon are great!

Carole M. said...

your header photo is a beauty Phil, also really liked seeing the red-legged partridge

eileeninmd said...

What a wonderful day! Seeing the large flock of geese and the wigeon sounds great to me. I love the cute Red-legged Partridge. Awesome images, Phil! Happy Birding!

Christian Perrin said...

Wow, those Partridge photos are great! Are some of them white in that second photo?

Coloring Outside the Lines said...

Great set of bird shots today!

Stuart Price said...

Wow look at all those RLPs! And 22 Little Egret too.

TexWisGirl said...

just gorgeous partridge!!! wow!

Wally Jones said...

Sounds like a good day out, Phil.
Quite a number of geese!
That's a beautiful panoramic shot of the marsh, looks like sunrise.

I presume the waterfowl variety and numbers will begin to increase as migration gets underway?

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