Out and about in Greenhill

Greenhill 6/11/12

Today I thought I would go wandering around the fields in Greenhill checking all the berry bushes whilst around with a number of reports of Waxwings.

I left home heading towards Briary School. The dirt track along side it can produce a good bird for the area but all I picked up was Blue Tit, Chaffinch, Starling, Blackbird, Wren and 3 Lapwing flying over W. I kept walking up the track to the football pitches and a walk across them to the bushes behind them produced Redwings, Fieldfares, 2 Bullfinches, 9 Lapwings flying over W again, Wood Pigeons and Stock Doves. A walk along the path didn't produce much but I heard 2 more Bullfinches. When I got to the other end of the path I saw one of the resident Foxes and it sat there watching me for a bit before disappearing into the bushes. The walk back produced a Cormorant fly over S, Kestrel, Dunnock, Great Tit, Herring and Black Headed Gulls. When I reached the bridge I crossed over the road and went down Molehill Road which only produced a Robin. I walked along Molehill Road until I reached West Brook and I walked alongside that until I reached the Old Thanet Way. I had never walked alongside the brook before and there wasn't a lot to be seen but I did see two different groups of Lapwings fly over both in groups of about 50, they were also flying West. Loads of Redwings and Fieldfares had been clocked up through out the trip reaching 500+ of each. A Green Woodpecker had also been picked up as well as Magpie, Crow and Jackdaw. When reaching the Thanet Way I turned back to head towards a little bridge and walking past one of the trees I stepped on a twig that snapped and a bird flew up the other side of the tree and originally I thought it was a Wood Pigeon with all the commotion that they normally make when spooked it briefly flew out my side of the trees and back the other side and it was a Woodcock!! I never expected one around Greenhill and best of all it can go on my mile radius list! On the walk back to the house I was walking along Thornden Close and as I got past one of the bushes I noticed 4 birds drinking out of a puddle in the field and with plenty of Starlings and Sparrows about I didn't think anything of it but they were sitting bolt upright and looked a little grey so I looked through my binoculars and they were Waxwings!! They then flew up onto a aerial and flew East (straight towards the house) almost straight away. I phoned Dad who was working from home and he popped down to see if they would come back but no luck. A Peregrine did fly over though which is another brilliant bird for the area but a bit overshadowed by the past half an hour! We made our way home shortly after.

At 3 o'clock I went to the back door and looked out into the garden and after looking around for a bit a Brambling flew in! I'd never seen a Brambling until the other week and now we had one on my newly constructed bird table! A new one for the garden list so I was chuffed by the end of the day, a brilliant days birding. It's days like this that get you hooked to it!

My new bird table being put to use with a very welcome visitor!

My Dad likes this one of it checking what all the clicking of the camera is.

Waxwing, not from today but from January last year