I had a wonderful morning at Highnam Woods this morning. The mist cleared to expose beautiful blue sky, which is just lovely to see at this time of year. Although the spectrum of colours in the coppiced woodland isn't quite as striking as that at Nagshead, but the sense of space and open air is just incredible.
As I walked around I was delighted as I listened to nuthatches calling all around me, raven a little further away. A couple of jays kept flitting out in front of me which was wonderful and there was the usual array of tits, chaffinches, and the occassional ticks of robins and wrens. There was a small flock of redwings over the central area of woods, seen shortly before I saw a red admiral skip past me - never thought I'd be putting those in the same post! I was also pleased that it is still easy to walk round it, the tracks are still firm, and not too muddy / slippy.
I managed to steal a few moments of quiet in the hide with another visitor too, and I'm so glad I did. I was greeted with the sight of nuthatch at seed on the table, and it wasn't long before I'd ticked off blue, great, marsh and coal tit. After a little while a familiar call took my eyes higher into the surrounding trees where a pair of long-tailed tits were picking through lichen and bark to see what they could get. Out of the corner of my eye I saw another movement, it took a while to see what it was, and I almost made a classic error and thought greater spotted woodpecker, but there was something not quite right about it, was it just too small? Was there more white on it's back than there should be for a greater spotted woodpecker? Yes, absolutely, I was looking at my first lesser spotted woodpecker - what an amazing sight! I watched it for quite a while, it was oblivious to our eyes on it as it moved around a bare tree searching for it's lunch. I'm only sorry I don't have an amazing picture of it to post here, but perhaps you'll be as lucky as me if you pop in there.
Hannah