This morning Richard Ellis, Paul Culyer and I did an early December winter bird survey across farmland at Gupton/Castlemartin Corse. A gloomy day (weather-wise) was brightened up by good numbers of linnets flying to and from the power cables to feed in weedy bird-food crop fields.
Estimated totals have still to be added up, but there were probably in excess of 7-800 linnets feeding across several fields. Smaller numbers of other finches in the mix included chaffinch (probably 100 or so, goldfinch (perhaps 30-50 or more) and greenfinch (at least 32 in one area). There were not many starlings around this morning. In the central block of fields that I was covering there were no more than 100 at most. Skylark and meadow pipit numbers were also low, as were numbers of lapwing (only a few seen in my patch) and no golden plovers at all.
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| It was too gloomy for photography really, but a mixed flock in one area had c.270 linnets, plus a few goldfinches and greenfinches |
Whooper swans are always nice to see anywhere. Two adults flew eastwards up the valley this morning, where were they heading?
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A flock of 53 stock doves was quite a good number for the area. They were disturbed from a weedy patch by a red kite hunting over the fields.
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| Part of the stock dove flock, disturbed by the kite. |
A distant single marsh harrier (female type) was seen briefly
over the reedbed, a single kestrel was hunting over the valley and three
choughs were feeding in the valley bottom grassland.
Bob