Whilst there are now plenty of birds on the Meadow floods again, sadly there's not been much to report by way of variety. There are good numbers of Wigeon, Teal and Mallards and this week we had the first PINTAIL of the season with a fine drake along the North Channel. Our Egyptian Geese have moved on though I did see our old fried the leucistic ("ghost") EGYPTIAN GOOSE one day this week. There have been good numbers of Lapwings though their cousins the Golden Plover have been rather fickle. I did find a flock of a few dozen on the floods one evening with the gull roost though something spooked them and they all left. Linnets, Meadow Pipits and Pied Wagtails are all frequenting the grassy areas near the floods in good numbers. I keep hoping to find a Water Pipit in amongst them one of these days - I've personally never seen this species on the Meadow though they have been recorded. There are modest numbers of Siskins around, particularly around the Spinney area and the canal and I'm also getting the odd Redpoll flying over from time to time. Winter thrush numbers are starting to build with Redwing in the hedges along the Castle Mills Stream and Fieldfares flying over regularly. I did manage to hear the Medley Farm Nuthatch again this week so it's nice to know that it's still around. The gull roost has been rather hit and miss with some evenings very few birds which haven't lingered and other evenings producing reasonable numbers though sadly without anything of particular note as yet.
I keep forgetting to report that a couple of weeks ago I had a very late Migrant Hawker dragonfly along the Castle Mill Stream - not bad for mid November!
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| The first Pintail of the season |
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