Friday 14 January 2011

Friday 14th January 2011


Just a quick post to report a quick sortie around the East Malling Research site at lunch today.  I had put seed down on one of the orchard tracks to try and attract Brambling down, and I did see one briefly when I checked but the chicken wire across the gate precluded getting any pictures.


I sat it out for another 10 minutes (in the rain!) and saw the following coming to feed or wash in the nearby puddles: 5x Blackbirds, 2x Magpie, Dunnock, Robin, Fieldfare, Stock Pigeon, 10+ Chaffinches and eventually 6x Brambling...oh and a Grey Squirrel.  The weather was awful and I only managed one crappy shot of the Brambling but I think you can just about make out what it is (strange the Squirrel snap turned out so well)!


The Genebank was pretty much deserted, apart from a cock Pheasant strutting around the base of the trees. The Medlars looked just about ready to eat - looking at fruit on my lunch hour, it must have been bad!

Next stop was Bradbourne, again nothing out the  ordinary, but a bit of variety: 83x Canada Geese, 21x Moorhen, only 43x Coot, 3x Little Grebe, 1x Shoveler, 9x Mallard, 2x Grey Heron, 1x Green Woodpecker, 14x Black-headed Gull, 3x Herring Gull, 5x Mistle Thrush and 6x Redwing.

3 comments:

Ken. said...

Hi Adam.
Well done with the Brambling. I wish I had seen at least one today. Guess I was in the wrong area. Have a good weekend

Warren Baker said...

Still await Brambling here Adam, you had a good selection of waterbirds today, mind you, it was the weather for it :-)

Kingsdowner said...

Bramblings seem to be like waxwings - some have plenty others (like me) have none.
Those medlars look good by the way.

Technical point about the reason why the squirrel looks better: it's bigger!