Date: 23rd February 2025
Time: from 8:45 a.m.
Weather: dry, sunny/cloudy, light wind, 8°C to 10°C
What an incredible visit this morning!
It is often said that local patch watching is the “bread and butter” of birding, enabling you to regularly see common birds appropriate for the habitat and season plus the occasional bonus of some more uncommon or notable species.
Exceptionally, if ever, you might see something really uncommon or even rare and the joy of local patch watching is that some day all your efforts to regularly visit your site and record and monitor species may be rewarded.
This morning, in the area around the paddock in the northern section of the site, I heard an unusual call which is best described as a loud “tic” similar to, but definitely not, a Robin.
I tried to locate the bird but failed to do so until I saw a large thick-necked and short-tailed finch flying away from me showing striking white wing bars and tail tip …. a Hawfinch!
If all that wasn’t very unexpected and surprising enough, just a minute or so later, I heard and saw another Hawfinch! Again, this was another fleeting flight view and I was unable to get any photos of either bird.
This is the very distinctive call of the Hawfinch ….
I did not manage to record Hawfinch anywhere at all in the UK during 2024 and this encounter was my first in the UK in 2025, this taking my 2025 UK and Essex year lists to 111 species and 96 species respectively. Needless to say, this was also my first site record, taking the total to 69 species.
This first record of Hawfinch for my local patch, a relatively scarce and localised bird in the UK including Essex, is right up there with my other 2 outstanding records of Pied Flycatcher in April 2021 (see here) and Woodcock in December 2024 (see here).
This was by far my best visit to the site in 2025 to date. I recorded 23 species of birds which, in addition to Hawfinch, included my first site records of Cormorant and Black-headed Gull in 2025, both seen flying over the northern section of the site.
Other highlights during my visit included a single Common Buzzard and 2 Sparrowhawks in the northern section of the site, both species being harassed by Carrion Crows, 2 Redwings (a single bird in the hedge adjacent to the access track from Larkins Tyres and another in the northern section of the site), 2 Green Woodpeckers (a single bird heard calling in the Church Hill area and another very loud and persistently calling bird in the northern section of the site), 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers (2 heard in the northern section of the site including a “drumming” male) and a male Chaffinch in the northern section of the site.
With regard to mammals, I had distant views of 2 Red Foxes and I heard a “barking” Reeves’ Muntjac, both in the northern section of the site.
Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):
Hawfinch
Red Fox
Here are some photos from my visit ….
Photo: Sparrowhawk
Photo: Sparrowhawk
Photo: distant and heavily cropped record shot of Red Fox
Photo: distant and heavily cropped record shot of Red Fox
Photo: distant and heavily cropped record shot of Red Fox
Site totals for 2025 to
date (2024 totals in brackets):
Birds = 25 (49)
Total species list for the site
Birds = 69
Love nature .... act now
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