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!

Around the Patch

A New Year and another Patchwork Challenge. I was up and out for a walk before the rest of the family (and most of the town) were up on New Years Day. It was lovely and quiet, just the odd dog walker, even Morrisons was deserted, in fact i've never seen the car park so quiet! Very good for the birds though, the Gulls, Rooks and Crows had taken over, picking at dropped takeaways.

Since then i've been all over the patch, with my walk to work, several visits to the Woods and even managed to get to the rarely visited corner that is in the opposite direction to everything!

Black-headed Gull

Collared Dove

New Years Day

Magpie & Mistle Thrush

Redwing

Blackbird

Mistle Thrush

Pied Wagtail

Woodpigeon

Rook

The weekend of the 25th was the RSP Big Garden Birdwatch, which I take part in every year, I did my hour between 8.10 and 9.10am on Saturday morning and saw 11 species, not too bad.  There was also Coal and Long-tailed Tits later in the day. 

Blue Tit 2

Blackbird 1

Robin 1

Great Tit 2

House Sparrow 9

Goldfinch 8

Starling 8

Woodpigeon 2

Collared Dove 1

Feral Pigeon 1

Dunnock 2

Feral Pigeons

Long-tailed Tits

Snowdrops and Bluebells are just starting show in the garden, Snowdrops are in flower already elsewhere around town

The woods are full of birds and birdsong, at the moment it's around sunrise when I get there so the birds are busy, one morning I counted 3 singing Song Thrush!

Coal Tit

Dunnock

Woodpigeon

Woodpigeon

Great Tit

Starlings 

Dartmouth Park (the one I don't visit often!) it's overrun with Blackbirds, more than any other spot at the moment. I picked up my first Greenfinch of the year here with several at the tops of the trees with lots of Goldfinch. 

Another tree has come down

Blackbirds

This bush was in full flower, not wild but part of the gardens planted there

In both Dartmouth and Scatcherd Parks there is blossom on the trees, these particular ones always flower early in the year

To date i'm up to 29 species around the patch plus various other sightings - Rats in the woods, Wood Mice in our window feeder, Squirrels everywhere, regularly calling Foxes around home, there's even been a bat flying over the garden on milder days!

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

It was the RSPBs annual Garden Birdwatch this weekend, something i've been taking part in for many years now. This weekend was a busy one (it's not every year your daughter turns into a teenager!) but I managed to do my hour Saturday morning just after sunrise.

Usually this is a busy time as the birds wake up and the noise from the Sparrow roost at the back of the gardens rises to quite a crescendo as they chatter before eventually flying out. They make their way round to our front garden to make use of the bath and feeders we have there. Of course with this being the birdwatch and birds having a sixth sense about this kind of stuff they decided not to follow the usual routine until after my hour was up and we were heading out!

Still it wasn't a bad count -

Blackbird 1
Blue Tit 2
Coal Tit 1
Collared Dove 1
Dunnock 1
Great Tit 2
House Sparrow 8
Starling 5
Woodpigeon 1

I didn't take any photos as it was dull and not quite daylight but I have a couple of recent ones.

Blackbird

Woodpigeon

And finally a bird that has been making the odd visit, thankfully not on Saturday morning.

Sparrowhawk