Thursday, August 26, 2010

Yellow Wagtails

There were 2 on newly ploughed fields off Jay House Lane, Clifton this afternoon at 3.45.
A H came along and found there were 3.

The farmer is "improving" the grass by sowing rye grass probably in the fields, thus making it worse for wildlife, though we get this fleeting chance to see things attracted in. One of the recently improved fields is a mixture of rye grass and clover, which should be slightly better for insects. There were about 30 swallows feeding over these fields 2 weeks ago, when they were full of buttercups.

Others on the ploughed and tilled fields:
1 whinchat
4 wheatear
dozens pied wag
c.500 starling
47 lapwing
77 B.H.Gull
4 L.B.B "
1 1st-summer Herring Gull
4 stock dove
7 woodpigeons

In the bushes there were
c.25 Tree Sparrows in 1 flock
10 House Sparrow in seperate flock up lane to"1-5 The Clough"
This lane gave best views of wagtails.
Reed Warbler near fishing pond.
5 Goldfinches (much reduced recently)

2 comments:

David Sutcliffe said...

Great result today up there Steve especially with the Yellow Wag's. It would be a shame to lose the quality of those fields for wildlife but I suppose the farmer will want to maximise the agricultural potential! The fields have been realy good in winter too for Golden Plover and Lapwings. I assume it's the fields where Andy found the 3 Med Gulls in July 2008.

Steve Blacksmith said...

Yes, those fields exactly. Should have mentioned that.
I had a brilliant male Yellow Wag in spring some years ago in the same general area. (Among cattle).