A Catch Up

It's been a while so this is a bit of a hodge podge of things from the past couple of months. Life has been busy and eventful so my mind hasn't been on blogging and i've just realised I hadn't posted since August. 

I had a trip to Blacktoft Sands at the beginning of November, it's been a while since we've been and the highlight was the long staying White-tailed Lapwing that was a lifer for me. It was a miserable day and we spent most of the time hiding from the rain in the various hides - no big hardship!

White-tailed Lapwing

Grey Heron

Dunlin

We've been to the woods often before work, the weather has been hit and miss but it's worth it to start the day off well.

Kestrel 

Woodpigeons

We had our first frost (and snow) recently and the woods looked beautiful.

A Heron landed on the house across from ours early one morning and stopped a while, it's always odd to see such a large bird on a roof.

In the garden we've had young Hedgehogs, young Coal Tits, Blue Tits, Long-tailed Tits amongst others. It does mean we've seen more of the Sparrowhawk as there have been so many birds around. Late summer early autumn meant young Chiffchaff and Willow Warblers passing through the garden almost daily, often with the Tit flocks.

Young Woodpigeon

Sparrowhawk

Chiffchaff

Long-tailed Tits

We had an exciting garden first too with a Jay making a couple of appearances, I've barely seen them at all around town the past couple of years so to get one in the garden was brilliant. 

Our first snow of winter came at the end of November and of course I can't resist taking as many photos of it as possible, it can make nearly anything look pretty and we don't get it as often these days so we need to make the most of it.

Hopefuly it won't be as long until the next post.

In the Garden

The weather has been terrible recently with two storms close together - Ciara and Dennis plus lots of smaller but no less horrible storms afterwards all managing to fall on my days off so I haven't been much of anywhere in the past couple of weeks apart from the usual commute to work (i've lost count of how many hail storms i've been caught in!). The past couple of mornings have brought snow and heavy rain right on rush hour which pretty much meant walking was done through deep slush and mini streams, not fun!

It's been good for garden watching, even when the rain has been at it's heaviest and the wind at it's strongest some of the braver birds have been hogging the feeders. We're starting to see Foxes in the garden more often now too and the Mouse is a regular in the window feeder.

A Sparrowhawk has been hanging around the garden a fair bit, i've not seen it catch anything though

Long-tailed Tits are now daily visitors and are often the last ones on the feeders late afternoon 

Goldfinch

Magpie

Feral Pigeon

Robin. 

We paved the area under the feeders late last year, it makes cleaning up the mess underneath a lot easier

There has been both a male and female Blackcap in the garden, at different times, both ate berries off the Cotoneaster, the only birds i've seen do this! But the male also took some big chunks off the fat balls too.

Less regular visitors are Greenfinch, Coal Tits, Wrens and Woodpigeons but all the usual birds are out in decent numbers - Collard Doves, Sparrows, Starlings, Great, Blue Tits, Dunnocks, Blackbirds. 

The garden is now full of Snowdrops, they've spread down the flowerbeds in the back garden and under the hedge at the front. The Hellebore is in full flower and lots of shoots are coming through. 

Hopefully the weather will improve a little over the next few weeks and I can be out and about as usual!