Monday 11 January 2010

After work today I had a 90 minute stroll around the wet woods, and Lake area, then cut across marchants field, and through the tree nursery and back home.

A lot of the snow has still not thawed, and its a very slow process with temperatures only getting to 2-3C today, what snow is left has turned to crunchy ice, and each footstep sounds like i'm walking through a bowl of cornflakes, everything can hear me coming a mile away, but I can't hear them!

I kept stopping and listening whilst walking through the Wet woods, and after three stops I finally heard two birds, one was a WOODPIGEON flapping it's wings as it was feeding on some ivy, the other was the high pitched trembling call of a TREECREEPER, the woods really were lifeless.

As I neared the lake, things only picked up marginally, I found a COAL TIT and a GOLDCREST in close proximity to each other in a fir tree (where else!) The latter species wasn't recorded at all over the weekend. I scanned a large Ash tree, seeing that it was full of seed keys, I thought maybe something good would be feeding in it, a Hawfinch would of been nice, but instead I found 2 Male and two Female BULLFINCH'S, the males really do brighten up a dull day.

The lake shows only slight signs of thawing, nothing there today, so I made my way back home, I watched the sky as I crossed Marchants field and the Tree Nursery, but all that was seen were Woodpigeons. It really was a bleak patch today, the sky was leaden and misty a day to be forgotten !

Below is a photo of the wet woods, with Marchants field in the foreground, bleak and lifeless.
Below is the view turning 180 dgrees, across marchants field, and the Tree nursery with the caravan in it, more bleakness.



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

It does look cold, and deserted in your two photos. I wouldn't think there would be much out and about in those temperatures. The hawks are here almost every day looking for a stray bird for a meal.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

Nothing new for me either today Warren. Better luck tomorrow!

Cheers

Dave

darrell j prest said...

yep same here.......nothing i wonder were everything has gone? some birder must be getting loads!

Greenie said...

Warren ,
You'll laugh about this when you're sweating in the sun .

Monika said...

I like the corn flakes analogy. Sounds like a good day for a feeder watch!

Kelly said...

...we all seem to be in a deep freeze right now! Thank goodness it's beautiful or it would be unbearable.

Chris said...

Hi Warren,
Yes it looks quite cold.. Gosh I hope this is gonna be better for you soon. Here the snow is gone and the temps area around 5°C, but it is raining all the time. Strange winter we do have both of us!

Phil said...

Hi Warren, funny you should mention the sound of walking on the snow, only today I was thinking the same thing only bags of crisps was my thought. You can't creep up on anything can you.
Phil

Anonymous said...

From the comments Warren, it appears it was bleak all over. It certainly was up here.