I always find winter birding exciting, not least because the birds are often moving around in huge flocks. It might be straggly skeins of pink-footed geese; loose flocks of redwings diving for cover deep in the hedgerow; fieldfare mysteriously blending into the tops of ash trees looking just like leftover keys; s
mall groups of pipits pipping over Croston Finney; two hundred woodpigeon grouping and re-grouping; four hundred rooks resettling in the next field; hundreds of gulls massing on a reservoir; thousands of starlings swirling shapes in the sky; or great clouds of knot and dunlin moving with the tide.I feel caught up in their exhilaration, in the excitement of wings.
Yesterday's walk around Crostom Moss and Finney rewarded me with large flocks of corvids and woodpigeon, c30 linnet, 13 pied wagtails in a ploughed field, 25 redwings, 30 pink-footed geese, 5 muddy whoopers, c20 meadow pipits, 1 buzzard, 1 sparrowhawk and other common species.
Today's photos of whoopers, rooks and greylags are by Phil Kirk - thanks.
3 comments:
I haven't spotted the heron who usually flies over our house about this time of year, heading - it would seem - for the Loughor Estuary. I did, however, see a cormorant, which is most unusual. Have a lovely Christmas, Mistlethrush.
P.S. Curiously, I have just spotted the cormorant posting on Professor P. Brain's blog (Tues 23 Dec.) ... serendipity!
I looked that up - thanks.
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