Fallow Stag, Knowle Park.

Fallow Stag, Knowle Park.

Monday 6 December 2010

** Sunday 5th December Halling.**

Sunday 6th.
Looking like another nice day I thought I would venture out again into the not so white world to see if I could add any more species to the months total, so with boots, and grippers on, and Glen in my pocket off I went.I followed the same route as Saturday, except I didn't go onto Halling Common, I only went as far as the first stile, and scanned a little bit of Halling Common from there. Most of the species seen was the more commoner species seen in this area , including the winter Thrushes as seen the day before on the same walk.The first new species I added to the list was aone of two male Pheasant walking up the railway line by Halling Cemetery. In the 1st picture  below in the view up the line there is a small black dot between the 1st and 2nd rail from the right, that is one of the 2 Pheasants. I did try for a close shot, but not very successful.


Once again when I got to the river at the bottom of Ferry Rd the tide was high, in fact it was probably at it's highest. I started to scan the river and the first unusual sight that amused me was watching a large tree branch floating about with 10 Redshank's resting up on it.Unfortunately it was too far away for a photo.
 After scanning the river and  banks  hoping for something different a flock of Gulls came into view and landed on the water, so I thought I would try my hand at firing off some shots of flying Gulls even though they wasn't that close.






I then decided to move on as nothing diferent was going to show itself. I got to the opposite end to where I was to check out the area I couldn't see.   There was usual Lapwings, and Redshanks here and there, then on the left bank along from me was my second new bird for the month, and that was a Snipe. It was keeping itself  hidden in the long grass, then a short distance  from that  coming towards me was one of  two Common Sandpipers seen today.


Moving on a bit,  I made my next stop at the stile to see what might be about and that is where I added the third months species, it was a Jay  flying over the Common footpath.

Halling Common Footpath where the Jay was seen.
Decing to call it a day I made my way home, happy not just to have been out on such a lovely day, but also adding what I thought was 3 new species to the months list, but as I got to the horse paddock along The Cam footpath I saw a bird flittering about on the ground, it turned out to be a Pied Wagtail, number 4 for the day.
That brings my December Halling total to 44.
P.S.  Once I got home I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on when I was some Gull's actually walking about in the garden hoovering up some of the scraps that I put out that same day. That is the first time I have actually had Gulls in the garden feeding, there was 2 Common Gulls, and 3 B/H/Gulls.

7 comments:

  1. 44 for the month ken, it will soon start to get harder to add anymore, keep at it though :-)

    Good luck mate.

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  2. Sounds and looks like a good day out Ken and 44 for the month is pretty good I think. I'm just about to start adding up my December species list for New Hythe but I don't think it'll be anything near that yet.
    By the way I heard the trains couldn't run on that stretch recently because of the wrong sort of Pheasant on the line......

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  3. Warren.
    Thanks for that. I will have to start trying harder.

    Phil.
    I wonder why nothing was running. For a moment I thought it might have been a new breed of Road Runner

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  4. Love the pheasant walking the tracks.

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  5. Ken ,
    You've certainly had a good couple of days recently , well done .
    I heard the trains were stopped because of a cock on the line , but I might have mis-heard .

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  6. Thanks Wilma. it's a pity is wasn't closer.

    Greenie.
    If they had been running and the bird had been hit, then they would have stopped running again because of a cock up!

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  7. Hi Ken,

    Thats a very late Common Sandpiper you've got there... you might want to let the county recorder know as I don't that many (if any) winter in Britain.

    Cheers,
    Bill

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