As i was early on getting to Blackstone, i decided to walk over to devils spitful, my local heathland, however the heath was dead, with nothing in it at all, however scouting the habitat was good, because some of it looked amazing, the heath could maybe grow abit bigger (as it is doing) but the birch woodland and adjacent large farm field looked good for certain birds.
TBH it was the wrong time of year for me there, but 3 Yellowhammer and 2 Red-legged Partridge were noted in the fields before the railway bridge, eg before the heathland, on the cultivation fields.
I know the spitful is very underwatched, but that is because even at the 'right' tmes of the year, it still fails to get a decent bird, however i can see this being a nice place to visit in the winter for redpolls, and in spring for maybe some scarcer birds.
On the patch, the 3 Mandarin still remained with us, as did the female Goosander, which had moulted its primarys completly and was sitting on the opposite bank of the river
All in all, a succesful patch visit
MB
2 comments:
I've never found Devil's Spittleful/Rifle Range very productive, although there was a pair of Stonechat there a few summers back.
Just out of interest did you know that an eclipse drake Goosander looks the same as a female (ie red head, grey body etc)...so it can be hard to sex them during late summer months
Well tbh jase, i would be happy to have a pair of stonechat, Really rare on the patch.
Yeah i know about drk goosanders taking a female type appearence in autumn, but they tend to have white patched in the wings from my experience of them, i have a photo for Sheepwash showing a flock of fem and eclipse drk Goosanders, and you can see the difference.
It also helps that this bird has been around since the spring On/off, and was a female then, so still probs is ;P
MB
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