** Halling Sightings.**

I had another visit to the doctor's this morning at 11am, it is possible to see the river from the surgery  doors, and I could see that the tide was out, in fact it was just hitting low tide, which is the best time to be there. I started off  this morning with doing a spot of garden watching before I set off, the species seen was: H/Sparrow, Greenfinch, Goldfinch, Chaffinch, Robin, Dunnock, C/Dove, W/Pigeon, Blackbird, Starling, Blue Tit, Wren, and 2 new species that have appeared over the last few days, Reed Buntings(1m,2f), and a male Blackcap.

Very few species was seen on the way to the Dr's, they was: Mistle Thrush(2), Pied Wagtail(m), Robin, Dunnock, Starling, C/Crow, Magpie, Song Thrush.
After getting comfortabe at the bottom of Ferry Rd  I started making a list of what was about. I started as usual with the species I always see: Herring, Common, and B/H/Gulls, C/Crow, Cormorant(1), Mallard(5),  Lapwing(4), Redshank(3), Grey Heron(1), a Little Egret dropped in to feed, and 4 Moorhen.

I checked out the Common and then the river from the Marsh Rd stile. There has been a lot of work done on the common, brambles and scrub chopped well back, and the wild meadow at the back of the common has been ruined by putting in what the parish council call shallow wetland scrapes, to me they are long ditches dug out with a jcb and the earth dumped to the side and flattened. It looks a mess, lets hope mother nature does her bit and it soon recovers.

There was some birdlife around, mainly over the back, 2 Green Woodpeckers, 2 Magpies, 1 Pheasant near the path,  a party of Golfinches moving from tree to tree, 20-30 Starlings flew over head, A couple of C/Crows feeding by the mud on the common, 3 Blackbirds, and a good number of W/Pigeons roosting.

Once at the stile, I sat on my usual perch, and scanned the other part of the river which produced a few good birds close to the bank, one being a Curlew, and the other being 2 male Teal, a species not seen very often. Further scanning produced 8 Lapwing, 4 Redshank, 7 Moorhen including 3 feeding near the top of the footpath, 2 Grey Herons flew across from Wouldham side of the river into one of the fields behind the salt marsh, and 4 Mallard.

My last scan was done from the bottom of Marsh Rd to theHigh St, where on this is often quite good for passerines.The species seen today was another 2 Song Thrush, a mixed flock of Chaffinches, and Greenfinches, another small flock of Goldfinches feeding on thistles. 7 H/Sparrows, 2 Great Tits, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Dunnock and 1 Robin.

This is only my second outing in Halling this year, so I was pleased with what I saw. Below is the total species seen today;
Herring Gull.     
Common Gull.
B/H/Gull.         
Grey Heron.
Little Egret       
Mallard.
Teal.
Moorhen.
Cormorant.
Redshank.
Lapwing.
Curlew.
Pheasant.
W/Pigeon.
C/Dove.
C/Crow.
Magpie.
Green Woodpecker.
Mistle Thrush.
Song Thrush.
Blackbird.
Starling.
Chaffinch.
Goldfinch.
Greenfinch.
H/Sparrow.
Reed Bunting.
Pied Wagtail.
Robin.
Dunnock.
Great Tit.
Blue Tit.
Blackcap.
Total species seen = 33.