Sunday 29 September 2013

Crossbill news

Spent two hours at Linacre this morning and walked around all three reservoirs.

The morning started well with a Kingfisher flying up the bottom reservoir, followed very quickly by a Tawny Owl that flew out of the woods. Numbers of waterfowl were obviously higher than recently, and by the end of the morning I'd counted 92 Mallard (the highest count of the year so far), 28 Tufted Duck, 5 Little Grebes (2 adults and 3 juveniles), 11 Coot, 3 Moorhens, 2 Great-crested Grebes, 2 Cormorants, 2 Grey Wagtails,1 Canada Goose, 32 Mandarin Ducks and 1 Wigeon.

The highlight of the woods was the flock of Crossbills, that today totalled 11 birds. They were first heard flying over the Larch trees on the south side of the middle reservoir, and then heard and seen feeding in the trees by the top reservoir overflow. I hadn't taken my 'scope with me, so I couldn't get any decent photos today. Instead I though I'd include one of the bird we caught and ringed earlier in the year. Hopefully we can repeat the success again this winter!

Crossbill

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