In an Island garden (1 Viewer)

[Quercus]

Saturday morning.... Gale force six North-easterly, wind chill of minus 7c, flurries...... I've woken up with the cold of the decade....The tender perrenials in the garden are turning into a slimey squish....

... But the trees are still full of Redwings.. and a flock of at least 20 Lapwings just flew over.

I'm off birdwatching!

 

[Quercus]

53, Greenfinch... I just needed confirmation.. I was fairly sure that they've been around all the time!

 

[Isurus]

brrr baltic on the bigger island - redwing, fieldfare and lapwing everywhere though; its wonderful!

 

[Quercus]

Saturday morning.... Gale force six North-easterly, wind chill of minus 7c, flurries...... I've woken up with the cold of the decade....The tender perrenials in the garden are turning into a slimey squish....


I'm off birdwatching!

Edit... went back to bed!

 

[Quercus]

Sunday.

I have never, in all my birding, seen so many birds on one species in such concentration over such a wide area. Sark is alive with Redwings, I thought there were a lot on Friday, there's far more now. Every field throughout the island is hopping with them!

There's now many more Fieldfares than last week. There was a flock of 2-300 Skylarks down at the South end of the island.

Lapwings are all over, I must have seen a couple of hundred of them altogether.

There's a couple of new Island ticks

54, Golden Plover, a flock of 8, in the fields avove Derrible Bay.
55, Snipe..

Other highlights were 4 Woodcock, larger than usual numbers of Meadow pipits and Song thrusha Sparrowhawk

What snow and ice we had, thawed last night, so we're snow and ice free again. The neighbouring parts of France are still snow covered right down to sea-level, so peresumably the Channel Islands should be providing a refuge from the cold. I'm a little surprised what hasn't moved over. There's no increase in numbers of any of the finches (indeed I haven't seen goldfinches since the cold spell started) and I only saw 4 Starlings.

 

[Quercus]

56, Mistle thrush.. Apparently quiet unusual in the Channel Islands, one merited a mention on http://www.guernseybirds.org.gg/ on Saturday!

 

[Cheshire Birder]

56, Mistle thrush.. Apparently quiet unusual in the Channel Islands, one merited a mention on http://www.guernseybirds.org.gg/ on Saturday!

Thats a very good website considering how few birders there must be on the island.

CB

 

[Quercus]

There's a few keen ones on Guernsey!

 

[halftwo]

BTW... this ad came up on my thread.... why?......

"Jewelled Bra Straps
Multiway Bras Detachable Bra Straps Gorgeous Huge Range"

They know you want one Q!:-O

 

[Cheshire Birder]

He's edited his post now H2!!

CB

 

[Quercus]

I moved it to RF... Better off there... !

 

[Quercus]

I had morning coffee on the WW2 lookout post (every garden should have one).. a small fock (6) of Skylarks flew out over the sea towards Normandy. There was a male Blackcap flitting around in the bushes. And had a good view of a Peregrine.

 

[Kits]

Only just found this thread. You have seen some fabulous birds, Querks. I shall look forward to some more pics when you are able.

 

[Quercus]

You took your time!

My camera's not good enough for bird pics..but no doubt there'll be more general pics!

 

[palval147]

Your list is getting interesting there, Quercus. We have lots of Redwing in our garden as well.

 

[Quercus]

I was a bit worried that I hadn't seen any firecrests since the worst of the cold snap.... but saw a couple today!

The increase in temperatures has got the birds singing,, Dunnocks were especially noticable in the garden today, on high perches in full flow.

 

[Quercus]

Spring must be on it's way... there was a" froggy free for all" going on in the pond today!

Sark (common)frogs are the biggest I've ever seen

 

[Quercus]

I had a nice surprise on Little Sark this morning... saw a couple of Skylarks flying into a field, A quick look just to check... Hmmmm... eyestripes... meeting at a 'v' behind the head... 56, Woodlark (x2) There's been a couple of reports of them on Guernsey lately. (Listed as "accidental" in the Sark list).

Also seen on Little Sark today a Raven a Woodcock a couple of of Oystercatchers.

I spent some time watching 3 pairs of Fulmars, they were sitting out to sea, in obvious pair, then every few minutes they'd take off, fly around in cicles for a minute or so, then land back on the water.

The Numbers of Redwings dropped overnight, there's still a hundreds, but not the thousands there were yesterday. there are still lots of Fieldfare, but I saw no Lapwings at all.

 

[Quercus]

Previous records of Woodlark on Sark --(From http://www.guernseybirds.org.gg/ )

6 records, 4/1907 (2), 21/8/50, 28/10/66, 10/12/67-19/1/68 (several), 3-
11/11/68 and 29-30/12/70 (several?).

 

[dantheman]

That's not a bad record at all then :t:

Knew you should start picking up some interesting records as time went by ...

I'm guessing they must be easily overlooked, but they do overwinter in the south of the uk, whether they just don't get picked up very often or are on the increase generally, or these were 'pushed' by the cold weather I wouldn't know...

btw, are there other frog species they could be, like edible frogs etc on the islands??