October 2011 Bird Survey Results & Photos

[Note: Click on an image to enlarge it. Click again to zoom in further. See blog entry for Dec 2010 to see the named areas on aerial maps.]

A glorious day for the Bird Survey given we were in the third week of October – starting out with frost on the ground and developing into a cloudless blue sky with a warm sun (warm enough for dragonflies).

Our Egyptian geese were outside the Waterside Centre to greet us (I’m always disappointed if they are not!) and our three groups set off to the three survey areas.

In the West area, we saw some of our arriving winter thrushes – a large flock of Fieldfares flew over and some Redwings were also spotted going over. We searched for Stonechat hoping we might get some overwintering with us this year but none were found.

However, we did find two Reed Buntings, one male and one female.

At the very end I heard a Buzzard call twice but couldn’t see it. A Buzzard was seen at nearby Walthamstow Reservoirs that morning so there was definitely one in the area.

Chamara Sugathsiri carried his camera on the survey and kindly provided these photos from the morning.

Debbie