I have noticed these last few morning more Robins singing, this is usually around 5:00 am when I am walking the dog before I go to work.

In one area of about 100 metres I heard at least five singing, this is usually birds declaring their winter territory as the UK population is increased by birds from mainland Europe that have migrated here to spend the winter.

The song in the Autumn is different from that sung in Spring when the males are attracting a mate, The Autumn song is more subdued and can often be heard late at night ( I once heard one at 1:00 am on new years day, my first bird spot of the year ), the spring song which can start as early as  late December is more powerful and lively.

Robin singing in Spring

At this time of Year the robins usually sing under street lamps, could it be they think this is the rising Sun?, research has shown that if it is a very cold night the robins will only sing if the have enough energy as they use most of their energy keeping warm, the robin can store fat for energy so if it has been a warm night they will have enough energy left to sing.

Gardeners may have noticed as they dig ground over in the Autumn and Winter they may have a robin at their feet, getting any worms exposed by the digging, this behaviour is linked to when the robin (which is a woodland bird) would follow wild boar and pigs as theY foraged in the leaf litter of the woodland floor.

As a child to see the Common Buzzard in the East Anglian countryside was despite its name quite rare, confined mainly to the west and South West of England, Wales and Scotland I did not see my first Buzzard until I was in my late teens and then it was only on trips to the Lake District.

Now happily they are becoming quite a common sight in the East Anglian Landscape, I am beginning to see one and sometimes a pair  in a field not far from me, in fact only this afternoon as drove past this field one flew over the road to a small group of trees at the edge of the field, despite the rain when I got home I grabbed my camera and walked back to the trees only to see the Buzzard flying away from me being hounded by a group of Rooks.

Common Buzzard

Whilst Buzzards are fairly easy to identify, we now get variations on what I once used to think was an easily identified bird, the Pied Wagtail, small, black and white, with a long tail constantly wagged up and down, it’s latin name is Motacilla yarrellii, but we now have the white wagtail Motacilla alba, so this morning when I saw two wagtails on the road I took some quick photos and came home to consult my bird books and everything seemed to point to that I had seen the white wagtail as it had the light grey back and slight yellow tinged throat or could it have been a Juvenile Pied Wagtail? sometimes it can get just too confusing.

White Wagtail maybe Juvenile

Pied Wagtail

As an update I can confirm from this second photograph I took it is a Male 1st Winter White Wagtail

1st Winter Male White Wagtail

very helpful website figure 3 confirmed http://www.the-soc.org.uk/docs/white-wagtail-id.pdf

Today dawned bright and Sunny and it was looking good for our Watch meeting this afternoon, Being one of the leaders for the Ely Wildlife Watch Group I am always keeping an eye on the weather, as nearly all of our meetings are outside.

The Ely Wildlife Watch group is aimed at children and young families, in short the aim to get children interested in nature and wildlife, so each month we have a theme that we base each meeting around. Todays was Winter visitors.

So I was pleased to see as I walked the dog a small flock of fieldfares fly over and having my camera with me I managed to get a quick photo of them as they headed West.

First fieldfares I have seen this Autumn.

With the fields already showing signs of winter crops I am sure there will be more in the fields, but they are usually hard to see against the bare earth, fieldfares usually like orchards which were quite widespread in Cambridgeshire but have disappeared of the years since the second world war, there was estimated 33,ooo in East Anglia and now estimated to about 3,ooo orchards.

Fieldfare.

But there seems to be plenty of fruit in wild in the form of sloes, haws and crab apples so maybe we will get more Winter visitors as it starts to get colder, I know we have already had redwings as I have heard them calling at night as they fly in a night but fingers crossed we will get Waxwings.

I will Just finish with wishing Jo one of our Ely Wildlife Watch leaders a very happy birthday, She is 40 you know.

We had are real first frost of the Autumn today in East Anglia we may have had the odd air frost but this was a ground frost, so I expect all those plants that had late flowers out have now been hit.

On getting home from work I noticed the birds had nearly cleared all the food off the bird table I had put out the night before, all the meal worms had gone in the tray on the bird feeder, I am guessing the starlings had a feast here and maybe the odd robin or two, I know the hedgehogs we have in the garden had been sniffing the air under the tray as I had managed to get film of one doing this on my camera trap, so maybe one managed to climb up and help itself to some of these as well.

We mad not have a frost tonight but I think most of East Anglia will have rain by the morning, but I have still put food out for the birds and the hedgehogs which need to have the correct body weight before the go into hibernation for the winter.

Wren on the rock behind the garden pond

Standing on the platform at Cambridge rail station is not always a place you would expect to encounter East Anglian wildlife, although once I did see a Woodcock fly past platform 4, this evening I noticed on the tracks the remains of a pigeon, mostly overlooked as we all stood there waiting for our train, I started to notice more remains of birds, at first I wondered how it was so many birds were struck by trains here, then I noticed near the pigeon the remains of a brown bird, I went to have a closer look at it and was sad to see it was a Tawny owl, in Cambridge Station? so I walked a few feet up the along the platform looking and counting the birds (getting strange looks from other passengers). in a short distance I had seen a Tawny owl, pheasant, red-legged partridge, stock dove and a number of wood pigeons.

Then it dawned on me these were birds that had been hit out in the countryside and as the trains stopped into the Station they fall off, a sad sight and it made me wonder how many more birds, rare and common, are killed just by train strikes alone.

On returning home I could see it was going to be a cold night and made sure that there was plenty of food on the bird table and in the feeders for the birds in the morning, after all they need all the help we can give them.

Visiting Chaffinch to our garden feeders