Everythings Coming Up Roses - Black

Rosy Starling was high on the agenda today, and if the weather was anything to go by 'everything' would be coming up Rosy! Strange to think then that this time (same date) last year we were up to the gunwales in snow, and here are a few photos from the Blog page for that date. To see the full picture simply enter 2 December 2010 in the search engine and hit return.

Weymouth Sea Front

Radipole Lake Visitor's Centre

Radipole Lake

Melcombe Regis Cemetery

By comparison, this Oak Tree still holds on to most of its leafs even though they are brown, while in the cemetery the place was alive with bird song, mainly Blackbirds but also Chaffinch, Coal Tit, Wren and Goldcrest to name but a few.

At Radipole low mist hung over the reed beds but the rapidly rising sun in a clear blue sky would soon put paid to that, while bird-wise there was nothing unusual unless you count an overflying Peregrine, 9 Black-tailed Godwit, 47 Common Snipe and my first 'frost', this end of the year, on cars parked close by.

On the other hand there was 'towering cumulus cloud' stretching the full length of our section of the English Channel not looking at all good,

again in sharp contrast to Weymouth Bay

where the sun and lack of any wind made conditions feel warm!

Despite spending about 2 and a half hours on Lodmoor, there was no sign of the 'Starling' but there were plenty of common species to sort through including noticeable build up in numbers of Lapwing and Thrushes, mostly Blackbirds. Greenfinch were still capitalising on Blackberries still remaining, as

a Kingfisher flashed by, perching on a distant bush.

The Shelduck has landed!

2 or 3 Song Thrush

along with the afore mentioned good number of Blackbirds

plus a couple of Redwing were also making

the most of the abundance of other berries.

A small party of 9 Dunlin were feeding on the 'flats' along the western edge making a total of 23 including others seen earlier,

and in addition a few Shoveler,

Magpie

Lapwing

Gadwall

Dunnock

and Little Egret.

These Snow Geese had just flown in from the Canadian Tundra (I wish) looking every bit like feral farmyard birds of no known origin.

There were, as usual, a few Grey Heron while it was noticed that

numbers of Common Snipe had risen too. There were 10 feeding in this pool alone at one point. Mid-morning the sky clouded over and with no sun and just a slight increase in wind speed there was quite a noticeable drop in temperature.

Those high clouds were still chugging up Channel as I left the Moor to take a quick look at

this medium size 'bulk carrier' which had just taken fuel from a barge in Weymouth Bay.

Finally, I'd like to thank SimonK for his correction to the Post of 29/11/2011 where I published the river flowing through Wareham as the Stour. It is, as he pointed out, the Frome and the appropriate amendment has been made.

Thanks again Simon.