Local News: Finches and Thrushes

Had a couple of nice walks round North Duffield village today.  There was loads of thrushes this morning, a good 1000 Fieldfare either moving through towards the southwest, or dropping into a freshly ploughed stubble field and in with these several hundred Redwing, Blackbird and Song Thrush, also a lot of Starling too. In addition here there was a few Meadow Pipits and Linnets too.

Several Goldcrest and Long-tailed Tit moved through the hedges and a few Lesser Redpoll, Chaffinch and Brambling flew south. A series of large puddles proved a great attraction for a mixed finch flock with Lesser Redpoll, Siskin, Goldfinch, Greenfinch and Chaffinch all taking a bath and having a drink. A pair of Great Spotted Woodpecker and Bullfinch showed well.

A bit later I was enjoying several Jay, Green Woodpecker and some more Great Spotted Woodpecker and had a couple of Crossbill and a Grey Wagtail fly over.

Also had a Goldcrest and a flock of 40+ Goldfinch in the garden.

Late news from last week: 

Last weekend I went down to North Duffield Carrs for an hour in the cold northerly wind and had very nice views of a Short-eared Owl, 3/4 Marsh Harriers and a giant of a Peregrine that was busy flushing pretty much everything on site!

On Thursday I went up to a new site we've just got in Northumberland, a big forested area so will be interesting to see what we get up there (if anything?!) started off with a few Crossbill and some Red Squirrel so not to be complained at.

Might be heading North tomorrow, Lesser Kestrel (if it is one?) would be a nice year tick - and hopefully a bit closer than the one I had a Minsmere a few years back and a Bee-eater would be a nice November tick! Think the last time I had Bee-eater in November they'd arrived on their wintering grounds near our house in Kenya! Just hope the fireworks don't scare everything off!!