Thursday was dull and cold, with flocks of birds on the grass and very few flying around. The high tide meant that there was no mud for gulls and ducks to search. Friday was a better day, a brief glimpse of a peregrine as he flew over to perch in a tree in the middle of the cliff face opposite. Three cormorants flying in from the estuary, above the Leigh Woods trees, and (possibly) some teal down on the river, leastwise they were ducks, and seemed to be flying more like teal than mallard. A curious phenomenon on the river - a line of debris showed where the high tide had stopped coming in, and reversed to going out. The river surface was quite different on either side. There was a flock of black headed gulls on the corner of the Downs near the traffic lights.
Sunday. Much more interesting and with fine high cloud and a weak sun. The jackdaws were diving around and chasing each other and also trying to catch some insects in flight. One of the jackdaws has a lot of white feathers mixed with his black coat. Several large flocks of rooks, one of over a hundred roosted over in a large beech in Leigh Woods. As I arrived (around 10am) a raven (maybe a carrion crow) perched over on the cliff face opposite, a peregrine flew over, there was an altercation! Off flew the raven, and the peregrine perched in the 'banana' tree. I saw several peregrines flying around, two to the cliff below me, a female came up the Gorge from the suspension bridge and landed below me, and another took off for the bushes on the cliff opposite. The pair of ravens now resumed flying low above Leigh Woods, and a couple of cormorants made for the docks. The Portway was closed to traffic for the third Sunday in a row; only a workman's flat top went back and forth. Nice and quiet - but with large numbers of Sunday runners, walkers, climbers and cyclists.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment