Here And There

It was a mixed bag of birding sites for me yesterday from the estuary, local woodland, feeding station and then on to the water treatment works. It was cold at first light as I headed to the estuary from the quay, with a 15 mph northwesterly wind and six oktas cloud cover. I made a school boy error and forgot my notebook and had to improvise with the back of last year's Schedule 1 licence!

On the mud in the quay were just 41 Redshanks and two Black-tailed Godwits. I walked round to the estuary and on the exposed mud of the river had 183 Lapwings and 20 Golden Plovers. It was really exposed where I was standing so I decided to retreat to an area of woodland.

Early morning on the estuary

The woodland borders some allotments and it was here that most of the birds were, including 20 House Sparrows, three Chaffinches, six Greenfinches, twelve Long-tailed Tits, two Goldcrests and two Goldfinches.

 Standing deadwood that has received the attention

of the local 'Great Spots'.

I then had to go to my feeding station to feed and a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Jay called from the woods. At the feeding station were 144 Tree Sparrows, 15 Chaffinches and two Yellowhammers. Walking back to my car I had a nice flock of 25 Fieldfares and 50 Redwings go over.

In the afternoon Ian and I headed to the water treatment works to top up our feeders there. Surprisingly it seemed calm enough to put a couple of nets up, but we were soon to take them down after the wind picked up and we only ringed a Redwing, Chaffinch, Great Tit and Blackbird.

 Redwing

About three hundred Greenfinches came in to roost along with about ten Goldfinches and a hard to determine number of Chaffinches. A Buzzard, Goldcrest and two Stock Doves graced the pages of my notebook here.

It will be difficult to fit in much birding this week as I have site visits in Northumberland and inland upland Lancashire, but if I see anything interesting on my travels I'll let you know.