Waxwings at last!

 After an absence from the area of five years, Waxwings have finally arrived!

Seven were seen at the entrance to Peak Village, Rowsley and a further nine were seen flying from Churchtown towards the A6 in Darley Dale.

There are still plenty of berries in the area so hopefully they will stay for a while.

Common Kingfisher at Chatsworth

It's been a fairly quiet week for me but the frequent rainy days has given me the time to write up my recent trip to Georgia. That said it was a beautiful day today so Pam and I walked to Chatsworth, nothing special on the bird front but we had great views of a Kingfisher on the river in front of the House.

A skein of 52 Pink-footed Geese flew south over the house yesterday.

Common Kingfisher - male judging by the all black bill

Common Crossbill - Matlock Forest

 Although I've managed to see Common Crossbills in every month this year the numbers were generally very low until the autumn. I was only seeing 3 or 4 birds regularly through the summer and it was not possible to confirm whether they bred, although I have done so in the past. 

In August numbers increased and I had a flock of 30 and there have been regular reports of 30-40 since then, primarily in Fourty Acre and Seventy Acre Plantations. It's difficult to be certain of the numbers because they are not always together and are not easy to count unless you get a clear view of a flock in flight. I got photos of a group of 12 this morning although as usual they were at the very top of the conifers.

Common Crossbill

There was some passage of Pink-footed Geese over the moor this morning, I had three skeins totalling 220 birds but there have been reports of larger numbers elsewhere in the County.

Pink-footed Geese.

I saw several Brambling this morning but no large flocks yet and still no Waxwing although there have been up to 16 at in the Crosspool area of Sheffield so not too far away now.

Caspian Gull - Upperloads

 It seems to be all gulls at the moment with another Caspian Gull today in a ploughed field on Syda Lane,

The field was proving quite an attraction as there were also around 40 Lesser Black-backed, 3 Herring and a Common Gull plus a nice party of 67 Golden Plover and around 40 Lapwing.

It's possible that th Caspian Gull is the same bird that I saw in Darley Dale last week I guess.

There were several hundred Fieldfare on the moor and the first signs of Woodpigeons on the move with over 1000 birds counted flying SW.

Caspian Gull

I picked up some more news on the Great Northern Diver reported at Chatsworth, what must surely have been the same bird was phptographed on the Derwent in Belper yesterday. So it had almost certainly drifted down river through Darley Dale and Matlock. An amazing record.

Yellow-legged Gull - Chatsworth

Following last weeks Caspian I came across an adult Yellow-legged Gull today in the fields just north of Chatsworth House. It was present for about 30 minutes with around 50 Lesser Black-backed Gulls before the flock was disturbed and they moved off to the south. 

Adult Yellow-legged and Lesser Black-backed Gulls

I didn't see much else but a juvenile Great Northern Diver was reportedly on the river south of the House on Monday (30th October) which I would have loved to have seen.