Saturday 27 November 2010

Bling, at last...

Once again South Oxfordshire is the coldest place in England, yesterday morning an eye-watering -8.4 degrees, this morning a relatively balmy - 6.0 degrees, without the wind chill of course.


But the light snow showers and frozen ground do get birds moving and I was rewarded for being out in the pre-dawn gloom with a patch tick - a sound like the nasal wheeze of a Liverpudlian gnome ("Errrrhhh"!) indicating my first Brambling for the area was passing overhead. Would be nice to actually see the next one though. A huge flock of 500 Woodpigeon heading south indicated cold weather dispersal was underway, but the real treat were the numbers of Golden Plover present: small flocks kept gathering from the north, numbers peaking at some 180 Golden Plover - easily a patch record.


Brambling was my 97th species for the Cuddesdon area and the 87th species recorded this year - and still no Wigeon or Common Gull in 2010 - bring on some floods please!

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