As the metrological office has decided that Spring begins tomorrow and today's weather was so spring like we decided for a walk round one of our oldest local patches. I have been doing bird counts and surveys on this patch ever since we moved to the flat over 40 years ago so we know it fairly well by now. It is prone to flooding from the local river Ure but had dried out fairly well with the sun and wind of the last few days. Along one hedge near a mobile home site we had both House and Tree Sparrows taking advantage of the feeders as well as Chaffinch, Blue Tit and Great Tit.Tree Sparrows and Chaffinch are fairly rare on our little patch so it was nice to see them. Along the Green Lane we had Sparrowhawk chasing, and missing, Dunnocks and Long Tailed Tits which were far too agile for the Hawk. After visiting a pond behind the golf course we headed for home along the river which seemed to have changed course a little over the winter and the bank where Sand Martins nest has been washed away, hopefully they will find another nest site this year. A pond not fat from home seemed full of birds today with good number of Teal and Coot, an odd manky Mallard seemed to have returned to join the real Mallard and to top it off we had 2 Little Egrets. A great afternoon out, a bit muddy in places but we feel so lucky to have these little gems so n ear to home.
Pete
Birding is for everyone no matter how good or bad we are at it,enjoy it while you can
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Regards, Hazel
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Nige Flickr
Lot to learn
Wendy S said: I'm beginning to sound like a BTO salesman here but I do feel that their work is very important in helping understand our bird population.
Lol Pete, BTO salesman or not many thanks for the info but even with training I don't think either me or my eyes would be good enough to do WeBs counts but I have always contributed weekly to BTO lists, especially when we had our garden and a great number of species and some rarer ones like the Crossbills (which I flagged up to the county recorder too) and Spot-fly, etc., All the data helps enormously as you say to keep a track on numbers/species and the areas they frequent. I have uploaded pics to BirdTrack too on occasion. I recently met an interesting chap who wrote a book on this parkland/history/wildlife and he is also a very experienced bird watcher who is also a WeBs counter and he is currently keeping survey on the heronry which we found out on Monday had 7 active nests; I have agreed to take note of bird species and any wildlife I see around the mere and woodland and note the count (for the waterfowl on the mere) and add anything of interest in the bird hide log. Now I need the 150 count of mandarin ducks to reappear or the bittern they had back in time !! We still have mandarins but in the couple of dozen or so at the moment. I just love birds so happy to potter along and try help where I can despite frustrating eyesight and juggling binoculars, eyeglasses and often camera ! At least we have a lot more time to focus on local birds around us during the lockdown and yesterday I left the camera at home and just walked by the mere and woodland areas where I heard so much more with not having the camera. I also saw a vole and heard a song thrush in competition with a female Tawny owl LOL