Wednesday, 13 November 2024

Visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas – 13th November 2024

Date: 13th November 2024

Time: from 8:45 a.m.

Weather: dry, sunny/cloudy, light wind, 6°C to 8°C

After a relatively quiet visit to Noak Bridge Nature Reserve on 11th November 2024, I had an exceptionally good visit to my other local patch site this morning with 19 bird species (untypically high for autumn) recorded.

This included another new species added to my total site list (Meadow Pipit) and another species added to my 2024 site list (Cormorant), taking the totals to 66 species and 47 species respectively.

I often use the Merlin app when I am out now and, on my last few visits to the site, it has picked up Meadow Pipit although I have failed to hear, let alone see, this species. That changed this morning with the Merlin app picking up and me actually hearing a calling Meadow Pipit whilst I was in the northern section of the site. Unfortunately, I didn’t see what was obviously a fly-over bird.

Cormorant is a species that I usually manage to record at least once each year and this morning’s visit produced my first record of 2024, a single bird flying over the northern section of the site in a westerly direction.

On 4th October 2024, I both heard and saw fly-over Skylarks, my only records since my first back in 2022. However, I recorded this species again on 11th October 2024 and 24th October 2024 and this run of remarkable autumn records continued this morning with 2 calling Skylarks seen flying over the northern section of the site in a northerly direction.

Other highlights during my visit this morning included c.40 Redwings seen from the northern section of the site (fly-over flocks of c.15, c.15 and c.10 birds plus several others heard calling), a Goldcrest heard briefly calling in the wooded area adjacent to the footpath heading down to the A127, a single Great Spotted Woodpecker seen in the northern section of the site plus 2 other birds seen together along the footpath heading down to the A127 and 2 Green Woodpeckers seen in the central section of the cemetery.

With regard to mammals, I heard a regularly “barking” Reeves’ Muntjac from deep within the wooded area surrounding the pond in the northern section of the site but I failed to see any Red Foxes or Grey Squirrels.

Given the cold temperature this morning and only intermittent sunshine, the sighting of a single Speckled Wood near the church was very surprising.

Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):

Meadow Pipit

Skylark
Goldcrest
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Robin
Dunnock
Wren
Redwing
Song Thrush
Blackbird
Green Woodpecker
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Magpie
Carrion Crow
Woodpigeon
Cormorant
Black-headed Gull
Lesser Black-backed Gull

Reeves’ Muntjac

Speckled Wood

Here are some photos from my visit ….


















Site totals for 2024 to date (2023 totals in brackets):

Birds = 47 (47)

Mammals = 3 (3)
Butterflies = 17 (23)
Dragonflies and damselflies = 11 (12)
Reptiles = 0 (0)
Amphibians = 0 (0)

Total species list for the site

Birds = 66

Mammals = 7
Butterflies = 25
Dragonflies and damselflies = 14
Reptiles = 1
Amphibians = 0

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