Being not too far from home, we decided to do a late afternoon exercise walk in Minwear Wood to check out the starling roost in Slebech reedbed. We hadn't seen too many feeding around our area (Landshipping) and so thought it useful to see what kind of numbers were coming into roost.
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| Part of a preening flock prior to heading off to roost near Landshipping yesterday |
Although not as many as in some years at around this time, none-the-less we estimated that at least 100,000 - 150,000 birds eventually arrived. There were not many from the Landshipping direction, or from the south in general, but vast numbers arrived from the northwest and north (roughly in an arc between Haverfordwest and Clarbeston).
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| One of the early flocks arriving from the north |
Numbers might still be building up and it will be interesting to see if, and when, they switch to roosting in the Miscanthus fields to the north. This has been the typical pattern during the last few winters.
Quite a few redwings came into roost in Minwear and a couple of Sparrowhawks chased some starlings in the reedbed but there were no obvious larger raptors hunting the roost this evening.