Friday 18 January 2013

This is about as bad as the snow got - hardly worth the continuous warnings we had from the weather people!
It was colder today, with some light snow about, but it didn't amount to much. With the lakes frozen over, and a dusting of snow on everything, I was at a bit of a loss at what part of my patch to visit this afternoon, maybe I could stay at home and get some snowy photo's of the Garden Birds ?

In the end I decided to go over to the Tree Nursery for a sky watch, maybe something would be moving about to escape the hard weather, anyway at least here there was a small belt of trees that I could gain shelter from the wind, it was biting out there!

Snow flurries continued as I began my vigil, three MEADOW PIPITS, a SONGTHRUSH and a GREEN WOODPECKER flew up from the tall vegetation as I placed myself out of the wind. Occasional REDWING, FIELDFARE and Songthrush passed over, then one of the KESTREL pair came over to hunt, a female SPARROWHAWK was seen over the Wet Woods, and a bit later the male bird sped past me, four LAPWING flew over the adjacent Pub Field, then two more flew overhead ten minutes later. In all I was stood there for just over an hour, but my feet and fingers were starting to burn with the cold, plus the light was going, so I headed home.

A short watch at the busy feeders in my garden revealed the first Songthrush for my garden this year, also of note was a SISKIN, but very few finch's came in, apart from the CHAFFINCH of which there were 8. The Songthrush was number 25 for the garden list, which as yet does not include House Sparrow - a sorry state of affairs  :-(

Could be an interesting full patch walk tomorrow morning ?

Finally here's something to look at, the last of my photo's from the 'blog photo folder' I need to top it up this weekend!
I particularly like this COAL TIT shot  :-)
Coal Tit again
BLUE TIT


8 comments:

ShySongbird said...

Hi Warren, I like all the photos but my favourite is also the first. Siskin on the blog log next? ;-)

Our snow started late afternoon yesterday and has carried on ever since!! It has been disruptive with gridlock locally but not quite so bad at the moment. I suspect you (and we) may get more over the weekend!

Warren Baker said...

Hi Songbird,
It will be a long wait to get a Siskin on the 'Blog Log' Not good for my fingers and toes in this weather, but I may try to tempt one down at some point this winter :-)

Marc Heath said...

Nice shots. No snow at all in east Kent at the moment and hopefully it will hold off until Sunday when it looks like we will get a hefty dumping. At least I will then be able to get out tomorrow.

Alan Pavey said...

Lovely shots again mate, looking forward to maybe a walk this weekend.

Lancashire and Lakeland Outback Adventure Wildlife Safaris said...

How do you get the coal tits to stand still long enough to press the shutter?

Cheers

DaveyMan

Ken. said...

Warren.
I agree with you about the weather. I admire you for sticking it out for about a hour, no wonder you decided to cal it a day, well done anyway.
The Tit shots are great. The Blue Tit is very colourful and posing nicely, but like you the Coal Tit is a cracking little passerine.
Reading you previous blogs concering Hadlow Tower, I too would say that it is leaning or was the photo taken after a drop of the hard stuff.
All joking aside, I personally think that it is a good looking piece of architecture.
Good luck at the wekend Warren, may the weather be good to you.
P.S. Well done with the Common Buzzard shots.





Pete Woodruff said...

Your snowfall is just about the same as ours up here in't north, don't want any more either thank you.

Enjoy your full patch walk tomorrow Warren, I certainly enjoyed a walk today.

Anonymous said...

We`ve had 9hrs of the white stuff Warren...and it`s still coming down. Fingers crossed for a busy garden tomorrow :)