Wednesday 12 November 2014

I think we have to have a chat ...........

Not one but two, Male and Female.

These Stonechats posed very nicely for me in excellent light at Blueberry Farm.

Within ten minutes of arriving at the log pile on the perimeter of the southernmost set aside field they pitched up in a rather inquisitive  manner and perched on top the brambles on the opposite side of the track, distance about twenty five feet.

The log pile offered excellent opportunity to '' merge '' into the background without a visible profile and with the sun directly behind me, perfect.

I am glad that I made the most  of those ten minutes because after that I did not see them again for the remainder of my stay.

Next time I will take my tripod because the wind on the brambles  was rather gusty.

No Owls were seen but I am more than happy with the images that I obtained. 

The distinctive call of the Male Stonechat, likened to pebbles being clinked together, can be listened to via the following link to Xeno-Canto.

http://www.xeno-canto.org/species/Saxicola-rubicola

                                                           Male
                                                                   Female




















                                                

4 comments:

  1. Hi John, glad you were successful, nice shots.

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  2. Thanks Graham, both images heavily cropped. As we have discussed in the past, its nice to go out with an objective and succeed.

    Another local birder, Douglas MacFarland, had a similar experience from the log pile, the birds showed up for ten minutes and then returned to the set aside.

    Many thanks for your guidance.

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  3. Hi John,
    I put a link to your starling murmaration post on Twitter the other night and was asked by a lady from Exeter Uni to fill in a survey on murmaration. I thought given that you're at Titchmarsh more often you might wish to do the survey, better/more reliable results etc the link is www.surveymonkey.com/s/starlings, thanks

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Douglas on both counts,I have done the survey.

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