Holiday Ending Tomorrow

After last Friday's bumper haul of good birds in Norfolk it was back to reality for the next week. I ended up working on the garden most days, and although ivy is a fantastic wild life plant, particularly with it's autumn flowers (not forgetting the Holly Blue) I am pretty well fed up with the stuff. Virtually every day has been spent cutting the stuff back, shredding it (still got masses left that is just too wet and sappy to deal with) and sweeping bits up. All day Tuesday I was on the garage roof getting the stuff off. I now have a completely clean garage and fence but until I can clear the remaining piles, the last fence panel and new gate remain stored in the garage.

Most mornings, Skylarks have been heard going over on a regular basis, and Monday and Tuesday I was also hearing my first Fieldfares of the autumn. Very early one morning, I also heard a few Redwings.

On Friday I spent the day with Sarah and Ed helping them out in their garden. Shredding ivy. They have several resident Robins, Dunnocks, Blackbirds, and the visiting tit flocks contain the occasional Coal Tit-Long Tails are abundant. Would have been nice to get a crest among them, and the huge numbers of Yellow Browed Warblers we get now have to be somewhere. 

This morning was rather dull and drizzly and the birds on the pager are starting to have a distinctly winter feel now, with Great Grey Shrikes, Rough Legged Buzzards and so on. Autumn migrants are starting to get a bit thin now.

I spent a couple of hours at Amwell, with Bill Last. Ware landfill must have been shut as there were a large number of gulls, with more arriving all the time. Barry has had two Caspians recently, and Yellow Legged have also been turning up. None of either today, though one bird had a mantle colour between Herring and Lesser Black Backed. Unfortunately it also had a very streaky head. The wildfowl were a bit skittish at times, for no obvious reason, I can only assume there was a fox in the reeds somewhere.

Here are a few Amwell views.