Our Cup Runneth Over - Part One

 With all this ‘off-pisteing’ and 'visitations' we have managed to fall behind quite dramatically with our posts, but will now attempt to get back on the rails with a ‘Two-Parter'. As far back as 04:00 on Saturday last, the sky was so clear and Moon-less that every Heavenly Body in the firmament could be seen, but rapid change was to come!

SUNRISE

looked promising but only lasted as long as it took to click it before the gloom took over. 

We are not noted just this 5 or 6 miles inland, like the coastal headlands, for our visible bird migrations in fact such occasions are sporadic and always exceptionally low key!

At first signs of sensible light we headed for the Moth Traps amid the gloom, full cloud cover and a temperature of just +7°C but also to a constant chattering from above. These were, in the main, from the likely 'hundreds' of Hirundines passing over and made up of just

SWALLOWs

and

HOUSE MARTINs 

However, as time past by there came other familiar vocals from both

 

LESSER REDPOLL

and

SISKIN

with at one point the very likely calls of one or more

TREE SPARROW

with most identifications being made on 'calls' alone, we add images from the archive for illustration! this mass exit certainly softened the blow of there being little of interest in the traps before focusing on the first of the day's opportunist

ROOKs

which gather daily at the Chicken Coup in hope of a free meal.

A 'charming'

 Charm of juvenile

GOLDFINCH 

perched, almost in darkness, on the cables above the main pond.
Leaving the 2 more northerly ponds until the light mist had burnt off, we headed directly for the Sewerage Works, or more particularly the hedge that surrounds it. First to show and most expected were Coal, Blue and Great Tit, Chaffinch and Dunnock before our first target was spotted  

GOLDCREST

which are thriving residents residents that breed here

while the first and likely to 'over-winter',

FIRECREST 

was not difficult to coax from cover, with both representing Great Britain's 'smallest birds'! 

Back at the Graval Pit, what would surely have been the

Bird of the Day,

had not another set of circumstances prevailed, this juvenile

LITTLE GREBE 

was met with wonderment as no signs of breeding have been seen on any of the watercourses for weeks and weeks! We did toy with the idea that it may have flown in from elsewhere, but considered it unlikely, so this little chap / chapess must have been keeping a very low profile since we last saw a 'hatchling' which must have been during June?

BRILLIANT and as for The Bird of the Day? That will have to wait for tomorrow and Part 2!