Pheasant
Photo Credit: Chris Farthing
Chris Farthing’s Woodberry bird highlights: October 2022
Sunrise on 12th October over Woodbury Wetlands
Photo Credit: Chris Farthing
Nationally, October is probably the month of the year when more rare birds are seen than any other. This is largely due to vagrant birds turning up around the coast though, and a small inland site isn’t likely to get in on the action. For us, October is about the tail-end of passerine migration and returning winter visitors. Gulls and ducks generally feature highly.
The biggest surprise of the month was a female pheasant (above) appearing along the woodland trail on the 20th. We did have one resident here for several weeks last Christmas, but the previous record was around five years before that.
On the 6th we had the first sighting this winter of one of our most loyal birds: A black-headed gull (below) bearing a yellow leg-ring which reads 2PNK. This bird has now been seen here in eight consecutive winters, and records show it was also seen in April this year at its usual breeding grounds in Jönköping, Sweden. The same day also saw the first common gull of winter, with one or two birds being seen most days for the remainder of the month.
Black-headed gull
Photo Credit: Chris Farthing
On the 25th a yellow-legged gull (below) was seen, bathing and preening on the gull pipes. The (presumed) same bird was then seen again the next day and again the day after that. This is typical behaviour for this species, which tends to go through periods of having the same routine for a few days or weeks.
Yellow-legged gull
Photo Credit: Chris Farthing
With moulting season now over, shoveler numbers continue to decline, going from around thirty at the start of the month to a handful at the end, but numbers of both gadwall and pochard stayed high all month. There were sporadic sightings all month of a pair of teal and one or two wigeon.
Our two notoriously elusive winter visitors, water rail and snipe, were as elusive as ever except for a short period when the water level was extremely high and both species were seen several times on the flooded boat access path next to the water outlet. Both kingfisher and kestrel (below) were seen fairly regularly all month.
Kestrel
Photo Credit: Chris Farthing
A sedge warbler seen on the 1st was the last appearance from a summer-only visitor. A surprisingly-uncommon-here nuthatch was heard calling on the 2nd, probably one of this year’s birds looking for a territory of its own.
Nothing unusual was spotted flying over on migration through October, but we had the expected few meadow pipits at the start of the month and some bigger flocks of both redwing and woodpigeon.
The total number of bird species seen here in October 2022 was 63, a couple below the average for previous Octobers.