I decided to do a mornings birding around the patch today with two things in mind. One was to see if there were any new migrants passing through and the other to see how many local migrants had moved on during this cool spell. However, I was distracted by the excellent number of Goldfinches that are feeding at the moment at Caldene Fields. An estimated count was made of 120+ birds including many juvenile birds. Also within this group were at least 4 Siskin and 1 Lesser Redpoll.
A total of 29 different species were recorded. But what was interesting was that I didn’t record any Blackbirds, Dunnock or House Sparrow…… Having said that House Sparrows tend to leave Caldene Fields and local gardens around this time of the year probably taking advantage of other food sources and returned around October. A guess might be that the Blackbird and Dunnock are doing the same.
A Brown Hawker dragonfly and a male Common Darter were at Toad Holes Beck.
Female Common Darter
