Saturday Sojourn

With the lockdown easing a little, Mrs PB had a look on the interweb and found us somewhere new to go as the forecast was a fabulous one.

There were feeders up in the car park, so as we'd taken sausage baps and a flask of coffee for breakfast, we decided to enjoy them with the feeding frenzy that was occurring.

Blue, Great, Coal and Wil-Mar Tits, Gold and Chaf finches, and also Blackbird and Robin were abundant

Great and Coal

Willow or Marsh? I don't recall a song which apparently is the best way to tell them apart

Chaffinch

One of the Wil-Mar's had found something to shred, and was auditioning for the local Santa job

Having seen Nige's recent thread, obviously I was going to see my Nuthatch nemesis next time I went out, behaving typically unphotogenically

Nice light, shame about the twig

No twig, shame about the light!

We moved out of the car park and could here some curious clacking noises...

A small flitterer caught my eye briefly

And a beautiful Chaffinch sat nicely in the sun, copying the Nuthatch... hah... nice light...betchya hate that twig dontcha?

I've not seen a Nuthatch digging through mud before...but of course he did it in the shadows

And then another came down and landed on a different fallen tree trunk

I nearly fell over in shock!!! Further into the woods, another heron nest, with two balls of fluff in (well that's what they look like to me!)

Further round the path yet another Nuthatch decided to show me it was back to business as usual

And a little further still, a Treecreeper was doing as his name implied

As I said, the tits were well represented, and this Great Tit was definitely giving it some

And just to rub it in, yet another Nuthatch was showing it's typical kindliness to people with camera's, after drawing attention to itself by being a lightweight woodpecker drumming a tree

And so concluded a pleasant couple of hours strolling round a new bit of woodland. Not sure I've seen so many different Nuttys in one wood, and we've never seen baby Herons in the nest, so two spectacular highlights for us.

Stay Safe All

  • Nice to find somewhere new and good, to change things around once in while. Those Heron youngsters look well-advanced, but they do start early. Glad to see you got a twigless Nutty in the end! I don't think I've ever seen one collecting mud, but they use it to seal up the entrance to the nest hole. If I had to guess, then I'd say Marsh Tit as it seems to have the white mark at the base of the upper mandible. Unfortunately, the photos don't show the wings well, so you can't see if it has a wingbar or not (Willows do and Marshes don't).
  • You certainly had a lovely day out, lots of different birds to be seen. The Herons do look huge sitting in that trees and the fluff balls are cute. Nice to find a new patch.
  • Lots of lovely twigs PB lol
    Sounds like you had a fun day out trying to get the perfect nutty shot..the one on the tree trunk is lovely. Herons and babies! Wow well done you. Thanks for sharing
  • Thanks very much all. I've some shots of the tit on the ground, Nige, no wing bars so these are the first marsh tits I've knowingly snapped :o) (Would've been 1st willow's too lol)
    CL, it wasn't so much how big they looked, but the racket they made, I'm guessing hitting bills together?!
    You've no idea on twigs Linda, I could probably build another forest out of the photo's of in focus twigs and out of focus birds lol
  • I enjoyed your walk in the wood and even if you get a few twigs etc the birds are great to see, much clearer than my waders for instance out in the clear ocean!!!! I think a muddy Nutty is a great find and the Great Tit is just showing what can be done when the birds behave themselves and don't duck and dive!!
  • That looked a good day out PB, and you managed to spot a nuttie.

    Brilliant photos and thanks for sharing, always a pleasure to see.