Meadow Pipit

After a day of rain and gloom yesterday, this morning was fine and sunny, so I went for a restorative walk round Swaddywell Pit, where the autumnal colours were quite stunning - golden willows and birches emerging from a sweep of soft ochre reeds, with touches of vivid red from dewberry leaves and a bountiful crop of hips and haws.

There was a large charm of goldfinches in a scrubby corner of the top field, which is unusually wet at the moment, and I spotted this single meadow pipit hanging out with them. Although nationally this is a very common resident species, it's mostly found in open country such as heaths, moors and coastal meadows. I certainly don't see many in the predominantly arable land around Peterborough. This one may well be either a passage migrant, stopping off to refuel, or a more long-term winter visitor.

While I was watching the goldfinches, I was aware of the distant 'cronk' of a raven, and I eventually spotted a pair circling nearby, close to one of the large ancient woodlands in the area. I still find it quite remarkable that I can now see ravens regularly so close to home. Persecution by gamekeepers meant that they became extinct in much of eastern England in the 19th century, and they've only returned to the Peterborough area in the past ten years or so. I tend to associate them with wild places, where they usually nest on remote crags, but they now seem equally at home in our more managed landscape, nesting in trees and power pylons and being much more tolerant of people.