A bit of movement?

The Safari managed to extract the bins from their case this morning only to discover they were still covere in mud from the exuberant Benny, my mate's dog, jumping up at us wondering where Frank was at the Buff Breasted Sandpiper twitch - seems a long time ago now.

While we were gently rinsing them under the tap a Jackdaw flew past going north, not a frequently seen species here at Base Camp but after last week's one on the garage roof we wonder if we've got a winterer or two kicking about...time will tell.

Once the lenses were dry we had a look on the tower but didn't see any Peregrines which wasn't really unexpiected mid-morning.

At least the wind has dropped a bit; from the bedroom window we noticed that few remaining trees were nearer vertical than horizontal this morning, a bit of blue sky - YES BLUE SKY - had us nipping outside where we had another (same?) Jackdaw going north, a few Meadow Pipits and a coupla 'alba' Wagtails going south with what sounded very suspiciously like the ch-ch-chrrrr of a Lapland Bunting, (as checked on Xeno-canto esp recording # XC39337) which we're not going to add to our year list challenge with Monika on the basis of just one call as we're not familiar enough with the species, anyone got any other suggestions? The hadful of Golfinches heard could well have been locals; the feeder can now be seen as the wind has removed a lot of leaves from the garden, and is almost empty but that too could be due to it being blown about excessively rather than them being eaten - we do have a wireless camera that really should be tuned into the TV!

Unfortunately despite the blue sky the wind was still chilly which reduced venturing outside to only a coupla minutes at a time.

There musta been summat up with the slices of stale bread we chucked on the garage roof as they didn't pull down any passing Sabine's Gulls, or any other gulls for that matter. Nor did the Jackdaws drop in for a photo opportunity although we did see two playing on the air currents around the tower. A low flock of 20 or so Starlings (scarce here) ignored it, as did the Magpies and a Woodpigeon. Not even the local Feral Pigeons were interested! The only excitement was provided by a Great Tit and a Robin calling from a couple of gardens down the street.

After over two hours the bread remained untouched but a pair of Goldfinches had stopped in the Rowan tree without the berries and a single Greenfinch perched for a few minutes in one of the few trees left at the end of the street.

Where to next? Maybe we'll 'see' you on the Autumnwatch message boards where we will no doubt be discussing (= ranting) about the lack of natural history education for the younger generation, over flailing of hedgerows, raptor persecution and the general mis-understanding of ecological principals by the cute-n-fluffy lovers - that should keep us going for the eight week series!

In the meantime let us know what's on starvation diets in your outback.