Passerine peak-a-boo

A gloriously sunny day was on the cards, and it was crying out for some autumnal birding.  Unless you're on the east coast of the UK, it seems as though migrants are hard to come by inland but with a bit of effort you can pick up a few bits and pieces.  Ringing sessions at Belvide have shown that with a great passage of spotted flycatcher and redstart.

Today I tried my luck at Doxey Marshes.  Sadly water levels are still quite high so the chance of waders was slim outside of lapwing and snipe.  With that in mind I turned my attention to the hedgerows and bramble patches for passerines, and so the game of peak-a-boo began.

The hedgerows were full of calling chiffchaff, with the odd bird even breaking into a bit of song.  In all I encountered at least 19 chiffchaff but also lurking in the hedgerows were 2 blackcap, 4 robin, 8 blackbird, a lesser whitethroat, 4 blue tit, 2 great tit, 3 long-tailed tits, 1 reed warbler, 7 goldfinch, 8 greenfinch, 3 wrens, 1 reed bunting and a dunnock.  So if you pass a hedgerow in the next week or so, stop for a moment and see what you can see.

Insects were also well represented along the hedgerows, with butterflies feeding on blackberries and dragonflies picking off midges.  Species seen included 2 red admiral, a comma, 3 speckled wood, 5 white spp, 2 small tortoiseshell, 4 southern hawkers, 5 common darter and a seemingly endless supply of migrant hawkers.

Occasionally non-passerines would catch my eye over the hedgerows, and birds of the day go to a flock of wigeon circling Tillington Flash, my first of the autumn (pictured below).  Also evident were snipe.  Several individuals were making regular flights around the reserve, but weren't being disturbed.  Instead the birds were alighting from Tillington Pasture, constantly busily feeding away amongst a large flock of canada geese.  Also here were around 100 lapwing.  A couple of kingfishers were around the reserve, and a couple of kestrel which are always nice to see.

A few swallows were busy feeding as they drifted south, a water rail was calling from the shoreline of Boundary Flash and I had a new personal highest count of 28 cormorants roosting in the tree as viewed from the bird hide.  Over the next few weeks, the number of shoveler should peak but today I could only find eleven birds.  Usually they out number every other duck in September.

 There seems to be a great supply of fruit in the hedgerows too this year, a sign of the winter to come?  Whatever comes to be, the winter visitors will no doubt appreciate the bounty.  This apple crop is from a single tree in a hedgerow favoured by redwing and fieldfare in November.  Can't think why...