Although the All Dayer is primarily about the number of different species we see, it is also a useful way of counting how many birds are on the reserve.
At tbis time of year birds aren't singing apart from the new male CETTI'S trying to set up territories and established males defending their's. Chiffchaff will briefly sing and other juvenile warblers will 'sub-song'.
However there were a lot of warbler contact alling and others foraging silently through the hedgerows and thickets. Most finch species were conspicuosly feeding on seeds, whether on the ground on thistles or the feeders there were plenty of them around yesterday.
Later I will attempt to quantify the numbers but overall there were a lot of birds of all species scattered around the reserve.. So if anyone would like to add their observations, that would helpbcreate a true sense of the
actual totals involved.
One example of the amount of birds on site, was when we spent 30 minutes at the North Moors feeders.
In that time we notched up the following.
Nuthatch, treecreeper, blackbird, jay, sparrowhawk, bullfinch 2. Goldcrest 2 poss 3. Blackcap 2. Chiffchaff 4+. Coal tit, blue, great and long tailed tit in good numbers probably 40+ birds and all this around 6pm.
So even at the this late time there were loads of birds about..more later :t: john