Siskins at Amwell

With the recent Siskin influx over the last month seen plenty of Siskin flying over but at Amwell recently was lucky enough to see a few feeding on the Catkins.

Feeding Siskin

Weston Turville Osprey and Wheatears at Startop's

In my week off in september a nice morning took me down to Weston Turville to see if I could see the Osprey hunting as i never seen any hunting in this country. So after a nice walk down to the hide with warblers singing and a few Jays oversgot to the hide where it had been sitting in its usual tree and after a little while it got up and started hunting and had a few goes but with no success it got chased off by the local magpies. So decided to walk down to the side of the lake and see if it would reappear which after a little while it did and gave super hunting views before catching a fish and which point it vanished to go and feed up,

Heron in the early morning light

Fly over jay

Osprey in the tree with the magpies

Osprey hunting

And off with with the fish

Then headed around the Tring Reservoirs to see what was around where the birds of note was a nice family group of 3 Wheatear at Startop's Reservoir showing well around the NW corner before at leat 2 birds flew up into the nearby tree after getting flushed by a dog.

Wheatear by the waters edge

Down on the south coast Phalarope

With a week off and some decent weather on sunday decided to head down to Dungeness and hope one of the Grey Phalarope in the area would stick around.

First stop was around the beach at Dungeness where there a few Wheatears around and a stonechat was calling but not seen and in the bushes quite a few Warblers mainly Chiff-Chaffs and Willow Warblers.

Then headed to RSPB wetland where I spent most of my time around the Burrows Pit getting good views of a Lesser Whitethroat and Willow Warblers and Chiff-chaffs in the scrub. While out on the main body of water a Great White Egret, Little Egrets and Grey Herons was hunting along the edge of the water while the highlights out on the water were Shoveler, Pochard, Teal,Tufted Ducks and Great-crested Grebes. Then moved around to the Arc Pit where had a nice plumaged Wigeon a few singing Cettis Warbler and 18 Golden Plover in with the Lapwings.

Wheatear down by the beach

Willow Warbler in the bushes

Then headed for the Cuckmere Valley a beautiful area with the seven sisters a big draw for the walkers but despite this a Grey Phalarope was showing really well well feet from the path in a section of the river so spent quite a bit of time with this stunning bird.

Feeding Grey Phalarope

Then finished up with a walk around the main Lagoon on site where I had 2 Green Shank, 2 Dunlin, 1 Common Sandpiper and a few Little Egret feeding with a Wheater and 3 Stonechats around the scrub.

Female stonechat

Male Stonechat

Woburn Park and more

On sunday a nice trip out with the RSPB St. Albans group to Woburn Park lots of woodlands were seen at the woodland entrance with a flock of over 20 Siskin seen from the carpark. From the Woodland entrance a Blackcap was heard and we had a good views of a Treecreeper and a brief view of a Spotted Flycatcher in with the tit flocks while lots of vocal Nuthatches  and great Spotted woodpeckers were around and good numbers of  Mistle Thrushes were seen flying over.

In the main park we had a few more Siskin fly over and a group of greenfinches feeding in the tree while overheard Red Kite and buzzards were seen. By the 1st ponds lots of Deer were seen with Red Deer, Sika, Chinese Water Deer, Pére David's Deer and Fallow Deer seen in good numbers. Around the 2nd pond a few waterfowl were seen with Little and Great-crested Grebe and a pair of Mute Swans with five young were we were lucky enough to find 2 Green Sandpipers feeding along the edge while in the nearby stream good views were had of a Grey Wagtail feeding under the bridge.

Pére David's Deer

White Fallow Deer

Soaring buzzard

Then in the afternoon a few of a headed to Panshanger Park near Hertford were we had a nice walk around with a lope of the main lakes were the Little Grebes seemed to have done really well with good number of youngster were seen seen with easily 15 birds over the two lakes. While walking around the back we had a brief view of a Hobby before walking further round where a Osprey floated into view quite high up before being joined by a Hobby a magical moment.

Osprey high up

Bluethroat on the east coast

With the weather last saturday looking good for some fall headed to the east coast started at Winterton Dunes as there been a few decent birds recently got there after the rain a few Swallows and Linnets were around while a flyover yellow Wagtail was heard. Then came to a few people who where watching a super looking Bluethroat around a big gorse bush, which kept popping out and then vanishing but at time quite happy feeding around the gorse.

Bluethroat

After watching the Bluethroat for a while walked around the scrubby area for a while where I had a Stonechat, Blackcap and big group of House Sparrows.

Then headed to Warham Green to see what was around fairly quiet but a few tit flocks which held a few Goldcrest and Chiff-chaffs. Around the Field edge had a Single Hare and a Whitethroat and Yellowhammer in the Hedges and out on the estuary lots of Curlews and Redshanks calling but ended the day with a lovely Sunset

Coastal Sunset