Plenty of Pigeons

The last couple of mornings have been absolutely stunning. Although I have only been able to enjoy them from the back garden, they've still offered me some spectacular seasonal sights.

The valley mist looked like it was on fire this morning

Now, this is a Wood Pigeon...

and a much younger version of me!

And these are also Wood Pigeons.  But because they are many Wood Pigeons together, migrating, they are of a completely different league to the one pictured above...

Phenomenal numbers of Wood Pigeons have been passing over during the last couple of days, some astonishing counts have been made today especially including 59,000 at Start Point and 110,000 through one site in south Wales.  Being over a mile inland I am missing out on most of these as passage here tends to follow the coast south west.  Thankfully however there have been plenty of stray flocks flying south down the valley before veering south west to join the main flight-path, and all these I can see.  There's been quite a few Stock Doves in with them too, and unusually I saw three grounded from the back garden yesterday...

Three with a young Wood Pigeon

Other than Wood Pigeons yesterday there wasn't all that much going over, and all day I didn't record anything new for the 'mini-lockdown list'.  

Today however I was able to give it an hour and a half of uninterrupted attention (07:00 - 08:30) and recorded the following 'vismigging' over the garden:

3 Lapwing, 1 Snipe, 90 Jackdaw, 9,500 Wood Pigeon, 48 Stock Dove, 18 Skylark, 82 Redwing, 8 Song Thrush, 140 Starling, 35 Chaffinch, 2 Brambling, 8 Linnet, 1 Siskin and 7 Reed Bunting.

I added three new species to the mini-lockdown list today, bringing it up to 70. One of those being the Bramblings mentioned above, as well as a Redshank (finally) and Shoveler. The latter thanks to a male that did a few laps over Black Hole Marsh this evening before flying south, no doubt back to Seaton Marshes.  

One more day of mini-lockdown listing to go, and I cannot wait for it to be over...