Brambling - I think this is only the second time I've managed to photograph a Brambling in Exmouth. They're regular enough as autumn fly-overs but there's very little to tempt them to land!
Totals from 0740 'til 1025 but loads missed as birds passed west along a broad front - 1 Swallow, 3 Brambling, c9000+ Woodpigeons, c25 Robins, 5 Chiffchaffs, c20 Pied Wagtails, 7 Blackbirds, 8+ Goldcrests, c90 Chaffinches, 28+ Siskins, 3 Song Thrushes, 4+ Redpolls, c80 Goldfinches, 25+ Linnets, 1 Rock Pipit, 1 Reed Bunting, 4+ Cirl Buntings, 14+ Greenfinches, 18 Starlings, c60 Meadow Pipits, 26 Stock Doves, 15 Jackdaws, 1 Grey Wagtail, 20+ Skylarks, 1 Peregrine and 2 Sparrowhawks. Zero effort into counting Mudbank stuff but a Firecrest was in Oaks behind the benches.
Super photo! The brambling is new to me, so I looked it up! Colouring and pattern are stunning. As a change from John Clare, I found something from Gilbert White, writing some 40 odd years before Clare. In one of his letters in December 1769 he writes about the brambling- " snowflecks ", he called them. "It's very amusing and strange that such a short-winged bird should delight in such perilous voyages over the northern ocean!" He noticed that they fed on beech mast and seeds of knot-grass in the stubble "the great support of small, hard-billed birds in winter."
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Norfg37. Bramblings are stunning finches! Just outside the Exmouth parish they can be found feeding on Beech masts (up on the pebbled heaths) pretty regularly in the winter. Haven't managed to find any good spots within Exmouth though. Their distinctive calls make them easy to pick up in flight in the autumn but you get good and bad years. All the best. Matt.
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