Low Moor and Oakenshaw Wildlife

There was certainly some fun going on at the Woodlands cricket club on Sunday.  Sarah from the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust was busy with the children making name badges from leaves, wooden bracelets and whistles out of Elder.

Then in the afternoon myself and Sarah took a party of adults and children on a nature walk around Toad Holes Beck and Raw Nook nr.

That Shieldbug must be a…yes it’s a Red-legged Shieldbug

That Jelly Ear fungus…yes it just feels like jelly!

Then a Comma butterfly posed for photographs and even landed on some of the children’s hands at Toad Holes Beck.  Moving on the Raw Nook nr and we were busy finding and identifying fungi well some of them anyway.  But the pond beckoned and Sarah brought her pond dipping equipment and the children loved it…and so did the adults too.

Other news, I am helping a young lad called Freddie to gain a Duke of Edinburgh Award.  He is learning about bird identification and wildfowl survey work in our area.  His skills in bird identification must be working as he informed me that he had seen what he thought were 3 Gadwall at a pond in Oakenshaw.  OK I thought….but his description fit Gadwall (an uncommon duck in our area) anyway on Sunday we visited the ponds in our area to carry out the survey work and there they were GADWALL at Toad Holes Beck…which must have moved up from the Oakenshaw pond.  So well done Freddie…

Today at Caldene Fields watch point I recorded another excellent movement of 4,296 Redwings moving S and 3,343 Wood Pigeon also on their way south.

During the last couple of days I have recorded some impressive numbers of Redwings passing through our area.  The main passage started on the 20th of October with 5,519 passing to the S and S/W then on Saturday the 21st even though the wind was very strong a massive 8,520 moved.

An unexcepted site first today both for our recording area and for my visible migration records.

A party of 5 calling Barnacle Geese followed a skein of 63 Pinks which came in low from the E and moved directly over the watch point at Caldene Fields.

My single biggest party of Cormorants 17 flew past Caldene Fields this morning to the S/W

A Redwing day! at the watch point  as just after dawn 2 parties came in from the E and moved high to the N/W.  However, the the movement swung to the W/S/W with birds coming in low, some below the tree line making counting difficult then gaining height as they moved W/S/W. I found a nice track to the S/E of the watchpoint where birds were constant. At lease 4 Fieldfare were counted as well as 3 Mistle Thrush using the same route.

Redwings moving S/W

Also I have been struck by the number of Goldfinches that are moving through another 73 moved both to the S/W and N.  However, there are still plenty of local birds about that are still feeding and it was nice to see a party of 30+ feeding today including 1st winter birds.

This morning the temperature before dawn was 4.5 c.  This drop saw 634 Wood Pigeons moving S and 102 Jackdaws moving S/W.  It was a good day also for finch movements with 89 Goldfinches, 34 Chaffinches, 5 Redpolls, 1 Brambling , 5 Siskin and 4 Linnets recorded.

Yes this morning at 09.12 a calling Grey Plover came in low from the east and went straight over the watch point at Caldene Fields.  This is my first sighting of the species on visible migration and the first sighting for our recording area.

This bring the total number of different species observed passing through our area on migration to 94 and the total species for the 3 sites to 132