Getting to the front door of the learning centre this morning we were met with a dead bird, the three puncture marks on its chest indicated it was a bird of preys lost breakfast. After dealing with the dead bird and recording its ring number, to pass on to the bird ringers, I started my walk by walking through to the large copse. Just before the large copse I noticed a Great Tit atop a Sycamore. Along the edge of the meadow the cows have been hard at work carving paths in between the scrub, in some places exposing the wall where it had previously been hidden by scrub. In the copse itself a Squirrel could been seen perched on top of a very impressive looking den.
In taskers a lone Magpie was walking along in the middle of the field. Magpies are quite a common sight in the park, but this morning they seemed to be all I sore. There was a few who seemed to circle the areas I was walking in the whole time calling all the time and general just a lot of magpies perched on different trees as I walked along.
As I entered saxon I spotted a Linnet sat on top of a Hawthorn observing the world around him. A Chiffchaff then fly past disappearing into the scrub. I carried on walking through the next few fields seeing more Magpies and some Swallows swooping past. Running along one whole stretch of wall was Hawthorn covered in Clematis that had gone to seed making it look like someone had dropped some cotton wall buds all over the hedge. From in between the fluffy clematis some bright red Rose hips could be seen poking out. On a clear section of wall three Pigeons were lined up looking like they were having a very important team meeting.
I then made the mistake on walking back along the top of light house field into the sun. This meant all I could see was the silhouette of the birds that passed me some like the magpies and Swallows easy to recognise and others not so much.
When I got back to the LC I realised I still had some time so I made my way to the bird hide to sit and spot some birds in there for ten minutes. Five Great Tits could be seen flitting between the different bird feeders. While a very patient Blue Tit waited next to one of the feeders for the grey tit that was on it to finish. Two Goldfinches also few in and landed on some grass towards the back of the wildlife garden.