Day 19.277: Birds in the UK

A non-complete record of birds seen during our trip. * indicates first record of the year, ** indicates first life record.

Days 19.270-272 (Oxfordshire)

No photos, but list includes these (many already reported here):

• Feral pigeon
• Common starling
• Common magpie
• Red kite*
• Jackdaw
• Common wood pigeon
• Eurasian blue tit
• Great tit*
• Long-tailed tit (heard)
• Rook*
• Carrion crow

Days 19.273-276 (Leicestershire)

Eurasian chaffinch

Eurasian sparrowhawk*

Eurasian skylark**

Some photos of a red kite

Harassed by a corvid 

Common wood pigeons

European goldfinches

European greenfinch

Common magpie

Eurasian sparrowhawk

Black-headed gull

Common buzzard

Eurasian jay**

Eurasian jay

European robin

Ring-necked parakeet** (populations have become established in much of the UK - much to our surprise). More surprising was the sight of three of them visiting my sister's feeders. I missed that, but was glad to see this one when we returned from walking with the dogs.

Also recorded:

Eurasian wren (heard)*

Eurasian coot*

Common kestrel

Those last two records and a fun repeat came from our last hours in the UK. As we stopped for fuel near Heathrow Terminal 5 we saw the coots in a strip of water by the road and a kestrel hovering nearby. Inside the large terminal building we saw another sparrowhawk patrolling from perch to perch - presumably on the search for something like I saw in Newark airport a week or two ago.