Birding round Durham & Sunderland 2012

Birdwatching in & around Houghton-le-Spring, Sunderland, County Durham.

Showing posts with label "Birdwatching". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "Birdwatching". Show all posts

Friday, 17 February 2017

Back On the Jacks

By the time our chores, errands & banking were completed, the morning had turned into a real beauty.
Clear blue, 12 degrees & warm sun
So off we went
Spring-like conditions had good numbers of cock Chaffinches back in breeding haunts & singing steadily.
A handful of Larks were up too, with 2 singles also singing on their way north.
A cheeky GSWpkr clung to the Kestrels pole, while the falcon sat on his nest box there !
A lone cock Scribbly sang whilst soaking up the sun (sadly its looking like this is gonna be the next local bird to start to pack his bags & disappear), with 3 or 4 Willow Tits happy to sing from cover.
Reed Bunting also added to the chorus today - only a couple but one gave a pleasant soundtrack as I searched for a small area for a Jack Snipe.....

(NB: all images here are either from mobile phone or mobile phone hand held to binoculars)

initial view - bird vis in dark central shadow

squatting

A short clip here demonstrates the "digi-binning" process - torture in the wind though !


It appears I wasn't to only one to having been mooching about...
Fresh Fox scat just a couple of metres away
Fresh Fox scat at base of pic - the JS was just out of shot

Lots of bones in this Fox scat - only a few metres from bird....

Sitting tight

Overview
 It was nice to get another on the ground without it lifting - ideal conditions for carefully "scan-reading" the vegetation before each small cautious step....
This pic of the cheapy Samsung phone edited slightly - looking forward to getting back to an iPhone shortly
Post Script: Back out tonight - different site hoping for roding Woodcock - still no roding yet, but 2 Jacks whipped up close past as they flew out to feed - 1 landing in a damp autumn sown cereal.