A beautiful day yesterday saw me along the Borough woods in Morpeth at daybreak and a frustrating hour at Widdrington tip. On arrival at the tip about tennish about a hundred Meadow Pipits lifted up off the fenceposts and the edge of the field and flew towards the newer of the two plantations. What made me more interested in this flock was a strange House Sparrow like call coming from the flock. I scanned them as they darted but I could only see Meadows and a few Skylarks. I walked along the edge of the plantation and the Pipits began to fly up again all over the place and I heard the call again but once more I couldn't see anything different. It wasn't until this evening after looking through a few books that the call could possibly have been a Richards. Well I haven't seen or heard one of these before so I will just have to write this one off.
Daybreak at the Borough woods
Another large flock of birds here were Goldfinches with about 80 with 5 Redpolls among them. There were 14 Common Snipe but no Jacks. I came across a nice fungi amongst the wet area of the old tip. I cannot put a name to it but it is possibly Bicoloured Deceiver or some other Laccara species.
Laccaria sp?...Widdrington tip
Dune Waxcap...Hadston dunes
I finished the day at Hadston dunes but the only birds in the bushes here were Chiffchaffs, Lesser Whitethroat and Willow tit. The dunes are full of Dune waxcaps.
4 comments:
Iv'e got a few bird calls in the phone just in case, including Richards ,but I guess it's not as easy in the field.
Would be worth another look.
Brian
Shame about the pipit Nigel, you should have looked for one the size of a skylark... Next time eh..
Interesting that Nigel. The only Richards Pipits i`ve ever seen were 3 birds together on Holy Island some years back and i remember how House Sparrow like their calls were.
Frustrating, these calls aren't they?
Thanks for the ID on Dune Waxcaps, which I saw in Wales (see post). Dunes seem a strange place for fungi, but everything has its niche I suppose.
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