Friday 3 November

Joy and I made an early morning visit to Hartshill Hayes CP in search of Hawfinch, on arrival I wasn’t hopeful as there was virtually no wind and it was misty which restricted visibility a little. We joined the semi-resident John Harris who had arrived early but had had a quiet morning.

There was a trickle of birds coming through but no great numbers, the birds seemed to be passing quite high and good ears were needed. Most birds were silhouetted against the grey sky. Pretty soon we had good views of a Brambling which flew in and perched up in one of the nearby trees.

By about 9.00am Joy was loosing interest so I set a cut-off time to leave. Typically it started to pick up with a flock of c.30 Fieldfare flew in from the north-east. We were considering leaving when JH heard a Hawfinch go over, it was above my hearing limits but we gave it another five minutes, we were then literally about to leave when two Hawfinch flew in the the poplars behind us, one flew across the front of us landing in a tree that was partly obscured. Although I managed to get the scope on it the bird was facing away but Joy got a scope view.

Hartshill Hayes

Brambling                1
Chaffinch               29
Greenfinch               7
Goldfinch               17
Redpoll                    8
Hawfinch                 2
Mistle Thrush          4
Redwing              178
Fieldfare                67

After we left John Harris had a further 10 Hawfinch.

In the afternoon we went to Bubbenhall Meadows where we eventually saw the Dartford Warbler which was mobile and difficult.