Thursday 27 January 2011

A different route

This morning felt much cooler and I decided to take a more sheltered route passed the lakes and into the woods, the path follows roughly along the Crane Brook and comes out in the fields (after jumping over it at a suitable point) on to some newly formed small pools, which have already proved popular with the local dragon and damselflies over the last year. The wood was fairly quiet, a couple of Treecreepers were calling but I couldn't locate them in the half-light. Two Goldcrests also called and I managed a quick glimpse of a silhouette up in the holly, the holly is always popular with crests and most of the Firecrests found at Sissinghurst have been close to or in it. Making my way out to the small ponds, two larger birds caught my eye, these were a couple of the local Buzzards, they quickly disappeared behind the trees. A Green Woodpecker landed close by and was unusually quiet! Siskins had started to move by now and small flocks of 7-12 birds were skipping across the tops of the alders probably around 50-60 in all. Just 2 Common Gulls and 2 Black-Headed Gulls flew east and 4 Skylark came up from the winter wheat. Heading back to the car park, I met Stephen, he had just had 10 Redpoll over and as we stood chatting I had my first Redpoll of the morning, finally back at the car park a nice flock of Long-Tailed Tits were noisily making their way across it, I would have stayed to enjoy them for a bit longer but it was now 8.05 and I only had 25 minutes to get to work!!! Ooops!

3 comments:

Warren Baker said...

8.05 with 25 mins to get to work.........I'd been at work at hour by then!!!

Another couple of weeks and i'll have some morning light too, then i'll have to drag myself away to get to work :-)

Alan Pavey said...

I struggled again this morning, especially with yet another lot of roadworks en route!!

Hopefully the same longer days might mean a couple of after work visits for me soon :-)

mary. said...

We're really loving your blogs, Alan! Facinating reading and great to get to know what's going on through your eyes and ears. Compulsive reading and enthusing! Thank you!