Oakwell Hall

Had a walk around the icy grounds this morning, it was a pretty miserable day but we needed the fresh air!

There were Blackbirds, Goldfinch and Blue Tits everywhere. The place was a little eerie though with the fog and didn't make for good photo taking, but here are a few from the walk.

Finally some of the very little greenery around today - 'tis the season.....

Holidays!

A short post to wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Life has overtaken me at the moment and we have barely had time to go anywhere. Hopefully in the New Year when things calm down i'll be back to posting as normal.

More Snow

We had quite a downfall of snow during the last week, made for some lovely photos. Also made for a lot of defrosting and snow clearing of the bird feeders. The birds have been in and out of the garden non stop over the past few days. A group of Chaffinch have taken to hanging around all day and I hope they stop once the snow has gone.

The pumpkin is still on the table!

First Snow of Winter

It fell overnight Friday and also a little today. We don't have a lot but it's covered everything and really brought out the birds into the garden once i'd defrosted the water and topped up the feeders! We even had a rare visit from 2 female and one male Chaffinch and a Greenfinch.

Here are a few pictures taken over the weekend.

Yeadon Dam

Managed to squeeze in an hour or so walking around the Dam this morning. It was a pretty dismal day but at least it wasn't raining. It looks a lot different now the leaves are gone, it all looked a little bleak.

This was the only splash of colour we saw.

The water has been taken over by Mallards, Canada Geese and Black Headed Gulls. Along with Coots and Moorhens - some obvious youngsters amongst them. A lone pair of Tufted Ducks were out in the middle of the water. Then in the middle of the Mallards I spotted a pair of Pochards.

Nice to see the difference in plumage in these Mallards.

This tiny nest was in one of the trees - no idea who would have made this?

As we neared the end of the walk a pair of Cormorants flew in, as far as I can remember in all the years i've been coming here I have never seen Cormorants here before. Of course they landed across the other side and when we walked around to try and get a better shot they had already gone to the side we just left - I think they knew! So unfortunately this is the best I got.

Finally we spotted this large growth of Fungus at the bottom of this tree.

Around the Garden

Just a little update on whats going on in the garden at the moment. It's looking very wet and windswept tonight but over the weekend we had some lovely sun and it brought out all the birds.

The Nasturtiums are still going strong as are the Cosmos flowers, new ones are still popping out even now.

On Sunday afternoon as it started getting dark, I spotted this Sparrowhawk in the trees, I just had time for a couple of photos through the window before it flew off. A great way to end the day!

Autumn in the park

Due to various bugs and bad backs we haven't been out much over the past few weeks but today we took a walk up to the park. It was a beautiful day despite the cold wind and clouds

We caught this little guy digging about in the leaves.

Some other pics from the day.

Fairburn Fungus

We spotted quite an array of fungus at Fairburn at the weekend. I have to say this first one is the prettiest i've ever seen - if you can call them pretty!

Here are a some of the others we saw. The little one had quite a lot of fun trying to spot them before us.