Wednesday 16 December 2009

There was an even harder frost this morning, and the day dawned crisp, cold, and bright. However by the time I got home from work for my afternoon patch walk, cloud had drifted over and light sleet was falling. The dull damp conditions made it feel colder, even though it had warmed up a bit from this morning.

I only spent an hour out, my usual walk over to the lake, but the lake was frozen from bank to bank. 16 MALLARD huddled together on the ice, and not one Moorhen was seen, in fact during the whole of my hour out the only birds I came across were a feeding flock of LONG TAILED TITS these had the usual followers, GREAT, COAL and BLUE TIT, a TREECREEPER and a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, whilst scanning the flock for something interesting, 3 SISKIN dropped in, right on the top most branches of a nearby Ash tree.

JAY, MAGPIE and WOODPIGEON were seen, but it would be a strange day indeed if they weren't! Not much else to report i'm afraid, apart from the garden feeders, which are being emptied at an alarming rate, a snapshot of the feeding station at any one time would show, 11 CHAFFINCH, 11 GREENFINCH, 13 GOLDFINCH, 15 BLUE TIT, 6 GREAT TIT, 2 COAL TIT, 8 HOUSE SPARROW, 2 DUNNOCK, 2 ROBIN, 1 WREN, 12 STARLING, 5 COLLARD DOVE, 5 BLACKBIRD, 2 GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, 2 WOODPIGEONS, 2 NUTHATCH and a MAGPIE.............its costing me a fortune!!

3 comments:

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
I like when you say nothing much reported and that you are still able to give us a list of 15 species... Then I laugh a lot!!! This nothing much reported will be kind of very nice for me! I do not even see starlings anymore ;-) The snow should come back middle of next week but we are still having temperatures of 10°C nowadays!

Anonymous said...

If i got that lot at my feeders, Warren, i wouldn`t mind the cost.

I agree with Chris. What some people call "not much", would be very welcome to others.

Monika said...

I'm sure those birds appreciate the reliable food source in what sounds like very chilly weather you've been having! We had our own freeze last week and it's amazing to think those little guys can survive the night out there.