back to the patch

recently i havent posted anything on lickhill my local patch.this is not because i have been ignoring the patch with my ever growing list and the posibility of a good bird, sure seeing unusual birds is good, but sometimes, just now and again, it is good to just take a srtroll out and find some birds.
11/10/09
lickhill
with vis-mig now well underway i thought i could hit some passerines as they fly over and one bird,one that(as previously mentioned on this blog) is quite unusual on site, maybe ,you could get a few flying over, just on the northern boundry of the caravan park, 8 sand martin flew over,

shouldent these be in africa by now,

a constant stream of pipits developed and at around 10:40am a huge flock of about 100 birds came low over, a few fields down a buzzard was perched on a post,i decided to take my scope with me so hoped for good views, and yes they were good views, not the closest views but still enough to see the bill(thats how i gage rapor sightings,if you can see the bill it is a good view),
i took up my position opposite the buzzard on the river bank and rested my scope on one of the posts. the buzzard obbligingly perched there for about 30 mins

this field had been plowed and had a few gulls, then i noticed the wagtails around there feet, then i reallised there were pipits in the field,after a flyover sparrowhalk put the pipit flock up, i counted about 50 birds,this put the day total up to and amazing 200+ birds,and given this is a scarce species on lickhill i was well chuffed, with the tussucks of grass and small ditches it was hard to see them on the floor but a few landed on the barbed wire and posts that surround the field and gave decent views,

a few rain showers started bringing birds down low,and one bird flying lower over the field turned out to be a migrating STONECHAT(year tick), this is the 1st record for lickhill for about 3 years(as far as i know),but soon after it flew off again continuing its migration, a flock of 50 goldfinch contained 5 siskin in riverside birches(i think thats the tree it was in) highlights were:

200+ meadow pipit

1 stonechat

2 skylark

10c pied wagtail

1 grey wag

2 kingfisher

5 nuthatch

8 sand martin

5 siskin

MB