MORNING WALK ACROSS TO PAVYOTTS LANE
WEATHER: wow!! That was a windy day, we also had rain showers and sunny spells. Temp 8C
The weather forecast was for very strong winds, gusting up to 70mph, that didn’t happen, we had some wind up to about 40mph but I think most of it past through during the night. It was much calmer than predicted and so we went out for a walk. I watched the garden feeders for a while, there are still small groups of Goldfinches visiting, the Blue Tit is still visiting the nest box, a Great Spotted Woodpecker is also still coming into the garden. The regulars: Robin, Wren, Dunnock, Blackbird and Chaffinch were all present and correct.
Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls
The walk through the horse paddocks and down to Barwick Village produced very few birds not even a single Redwing!! Pavyotts Lane has had its day too, this area is definitely a place to visit during the winter months. The cow field held a handful of gulls, Herring and Lesser BB and nothing else. Not a single Lapwing or Golden Plover, the Stonechats have also gone and I couldn’t see much else. The fodder beat had almost gone with just a narrow strip left at the very bottom of the field, I could see a row of cattle feeding there.
Pied Wagtail
Dawn and I walked down to the Mill to take a closer look at where the cattle were feeding, I counted about 30 Pied Wagtails in and around the cattle, but nothing else. We then walked back up the lane to the stubble field, in recent weeks I had seen hundreds of birds in this field but today just a skeleton staff was on duty! I saw 11 Fieldfares, 1 Redwing, 22 Linnets, 2 Chaffinches and 1 meadow Pipit. These were the last remnants of much larger flocks that were present through the winter months.
Fieldfare above and Redwing below, in the stubble
Meadow Pipit also in the stubble field
It started to rain around 11am and so we made our way back, it wasn’t until we got to the entrance to Barwick House that we added Green Woodpecker to the day list and nothing else appeared. We got home without getting too wet the shower was only a light one.