Thursday 30 August 2018

Huetor Tajar with John Wainwright

Wednesday 29 August

Despite all the recent hot weather I see that my friend John Wainwright is taking every opportunity to visit some of his local patches and keep up to date with the latest bird movements. these past few days he has been concentrating on the area around Huetor Tajar as can be seen from the following report.


Huetor Tajar  22nd - 29th August

Hot, Hot and even Hotter!!!

Due to having to take Jenny down to physio every day, I have had the opportunity to sit for a while along the stream at the back of  Huetor Tajar.  It has been a mixed week with masses of House Sparrows, Greenfinches and Goldfinches about.  Several sightings of Bee-eaters moving through and even a Golden Oriole coming into the walnut tree under which I was parked.

A very strange sight was a Common Magpie literally attacking a Collared Dove, which took shelter in a tree but was quickly dislodged by another Common Magpie and the chase continued into another tree where I lost sight of the birds although their "cha-ka" could be heard for a while.
Azure-winged Magpies were in good numbers as were the flocks of Spotless Starlings, rising up from the verges every time a vehicle passed them. 


A family of Great Tits and a couple of Chaffinches were the next visitors to the walnut trees and then a Great Spotted Woodpecker came in but must have spotted me as it was only there for a few seconds.


What little water there was, was visited by Crested Larks, Serins, a White Wagtail with a nice addition being a single Little Ringed Plover.  Two Moorhens were noted throughout the week, although a small local dog seemed to have fun chasing after them.  On a fence several juvenile Woochat Shrikes were logged as were Corn Buntings and the odd  Blackbird, while in the stubble behind huge numbers of Woodpigeons were feeding. Also, a Brown Hare was seen here.
Barn and Red-rumped Swallows  as well as House Martins were feeding over the stream and fields here.


As we came back into Salar we noted our 24th Little Owl was dead, this is only in a three year period (we never counted them before that).  A Short-toed Eagle was at rest on a pylon top and a Black Kite was seen soaring over the asparagus fields.


Thanks John for some interesting information. 


Check out the accompanying website at http://www.birdingaxarquia.weebly.com for the latest sightings, photographs and additional information

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