Following a couple of enforced bird-free days I got to Out Rawcliffe where I topped up the Niger feeders and took a wander around. With the wind finally relenting I put up a couple of nets for a while in hoping for a catch of Goldfinches. I caught just 10 birds and it wasn’t the yellow and red of Goldfinches in the net, but the red of Robins and the yellow of Yellowhammers, with 3 Robins, 4 Yellowhammers, 1 Reed Bunting, 1 Blackbird and 1 Chaffinch.
Goldfinches were strangely absent this morning with just 4 knocking about the feeders with a number of Chaffinch for company. The Yellowhammers I caught were some of the 15 or so arriving to mop up the wheat falling from the shooter’s game feeders.
The single Blackbird caught, a large first winter male, looked very much like a “continental” type, especially with a wing length of 141mm and a weight of 113 grams.
A good wander round the immediate area revealed not much about: 70 Lapwing, 50 Chaffinch, 2 Kestrel, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 3 Skylark, 2 Corn Bunting, 4 Linnet and 4 Reed Bunting. The mild sort of morning induced a few species into brief song, with new ones for my year of Chaffinch, Skylark and Corn Bunting.
I had a glimpse of a Tawny Owl this morning and found four fresh and still damp pellets from where it took off. An owl pellet is the portion of an owl’s prey that has not been digested. Owls swallow their prey whole (they don’t have teeth to chew) and the feathers, fur, bones and other indigestible parts are regurgitated by the owl some hours after a meal in the form of a compressed pellet of matter.
In my picture (double click to enlarge) it is possible to see the remains of a small bird the owl had eaten - bits of feather and the feather sheaths themselves.
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