Thursday, 1 April 2010

LONG DAY

28/03/10

undisclosed site

spent 4 hours in a woodland today.

we casually walked around for an hour and a bit untill i picked up our target bird up my its call (drumming), we then moved slightly closer and then i picked up the LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER moveing among the tree tops. the bird was a female but was quite distant for my digiscopeing or my friends camera. we watched from this safe distance and soon after a second bird flew across in front of the first and landed on a nearby tree( a male), this bird called and then flew off followed by the female. we moved on, not wanting to desturb the woodpeckers too much(at all), we walked around the site picking up 2 little grebes on a small pool+ nest, multiple nuthatch and treecreeper and the other 2 common 'british' woodpeckers(green and GS).


we climbed up the hills and searched the summit but no wheatears or rouzels appeared. a few buzzards were soring above. a flock of 30-40 stock doves was noteworthy with 20c woodpigeons(feding in field), 3 goldcrest were located in the 'ivy' covered places in the wood.


on another track, this is what we stumbled upon(and by that i mean, we knew it was there):





A roosting TAWNEY OWL, my first sighting this year, we spent a lot of time photographing the bird, showing other people with my bins/scope etc. most of which were quite interested. on a few occasions the owl started to 'hoot' with its call penitrating throughout the woodland, a really unusual sound in the daytime.


and thats all folks, no passerine migrants, although this was not what i was after.

2 year ticks

LS woodpecker

Tawney owl

MB

2 comments:

Robs Birding said...

Hi MB, well done on a successful woodland watch :) cool pics of the Tawny Owl too !

midlands birder said...

im usually crap at finding bird in woodland so well pleased by this day, a pair of ear ticks.
MB