Bits and Pieces

This weekend was the RSPB garden birdwatch, meaning an hour spent watching the garden and counting the birds - definitely not a hardship! I did mine early Saturday morning and managed 11 species after a slow start to the hour 

Blackbird 2

Blue Tit 2

Magpie 1

Robin 2

Dunnock 3

Starling 12

Goldfinch 9

House Sparrow 2

Collared Dove 1

Great Tit 1

Coal Tit 1

Just after the hour was up this Wren spent nearly twenty minutes hopping around the undergrowth.

Long-tailed Tits have been visiting the garden often and not just on the feeders either.

For the first time in a while we walked all the way to the Woods as part of our daily exercise (which I must admit I am struggling to get out and do on a weekend). As always we were up and out early to try and avoid as many people as possible, which worked well as we only saw a few dog walkers. It was good to get back in the woods. It was full of Woodpigeons, Blackbirds, Robins and Squirrels! A Great Spotted Woodpecker put in a brief appearance overhead. We stopped by the viewing screen and watched a couple of Chaffinch drinking in the stream.

It was a pretty frosty morning and we even saw icicles, you don't often see those these days, not like the ones I remember hanging from houses as a child! 

Despite the frost Snowdrops are popping up all over

On the way back home I managed to add a couple of patch ticks for the year, with a Bullfinch and in the same place I saw one last October a Grey Wagtail, hopping about with a Pied Wagtail!

At the moment there is no date for lifting lockdown, with cases and deaths as they are right now it won't be happening anytime soon!

A New Year....

 .....so far it's turning out to be just like the last! We are back in lock down possibly until the end of February, maybe into March depending on how things go so we are back to local excercise and patch birding. 

On the 1st January it was dull and damp and there was still a hint of snow from earlier in the week. I headed out for an early walk around the town centre, seeing the usual lack of people and the usual birds - Black-headed Gulls, Redwings, Magpies.....

Redwing

Magpie

Long-tailed Tit

Spot the Song Thrush

Blue Tit

In the garden we've had 2 or 3 Squirrels visiting on a regular basis, my daughter saw two of them chasing each other and actually fighting, one even hit the patio door mid fight and ended up with a bloody head! It has a distinctive patch on it's back and we've seen it often since though so it seems to have recovered ok. 

Blackbird

We have an old hanging basket by the patio doors, which we fill with nuts, the Doves, Tits and Squirrels love it but for some reason the Squirrels do try and climb out of it and up the side of the house, not sure where they think they are going!

Long-tailed Tits

Robin

Last week we had a day of heavy snow, which caused chaos and meant I ended up having a half day at work so was able to make sure the feeders were filled, the garden was busy with birds all day!

Starlings

House Sparrows

Now we're left with icy paths, we did try and go out for a walk this morning but ended up cutting it short so we didn't break any limbs! 

On the plus side of this lock down, i'm already powering through some of the non fiction I was hoping to read last year!