This Northern Wheatear dosen't look that happy to be in the park.
By mid day he had cheered up and was feeding vigorously.
Meadow Pipit, the hind claw is very long compared to the Tree Pipit
It had been a fairly dull day with notg when Bang!
Montagu's Harrier: we decided today we would do our first skywatch of the autumn.
We had seen very little when all of a sudden I picked up a very high flying raptor approach from the north. It's long narrowish wings (barred secondaries) and tail, elegant very boyuant flight had alarm bells ringing in my ears. I passed the scope to Dave and asked what do you think? It's definitely a harrier he said and after a few seconds concluded that it had to be a Monties. It was flying southwestwards, so I looked to see if I had Rupert's (Wetland Centre birder) phone number on me. I didn't, so decided that a message on the RBA might get to him in time. Unfortunately he didn't receive the message until the bird had probably gone by.
Hobby: one flew north at 16.10pm.
Sparrowhawk: possibly four different birds were seen.
Yellow Wagtail: one flew north at 12.45pm.
Pied Wagtail: two flew north.
Meadow Pipit: five birds were on the ground briefly, three more flew over while we skywatched.
Northern Wheatear: a bird was present in area 28 from 8.30am until at least 16.00pm.
Swallow: eight birds passed through.
House Martin: twenty five were over the lake at 7.00am.
Spotted Flycatcher: one was in area 29 again.
Blackcap: four birds were present.
Chiffchaff: ten birds were present.
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