A quite glorious morning, blue skies, bright sunshine but with the chilly north-easterly wind blowing across, this is not very conducive to our small birds migrating across the channel. Therefore sightings today were mostly of our residents.
From the top of a leafless Sycamore came the ‘quick-quick-slow’ song of a male Chaffinch, which effectively attracted a duller brown female, followed by another brightly coloured pink and blue male. These two then fluttered and flapped both disappearing into the distance leaving the female alone in the tree.
High above a Skylark again sung loudly while another was seen on the ground amongst the scattered yellow carpet of Cowslips.
The ‘seep’ of a Greenfinch was a welcome sound, the sun shining on the green and yellow feathers, as it perched in the white blossom of the Blackthorn.
Overhead a Bullfinch was calling, while a Blackcap perched in the now leaf covered Hawthorn, and the bird ringers this morning caught 2 Coal Tits, and a recaptured Song Thrush.
The woodlands are awash with different green colours, with the leaves of Lords and Ladies poking through the large almost circular leaves of Winter Heliotrope, the curled leaves of Hart’s-Tongue Fern, and long leaves of Three-cornered Leek and the flatter Ramsons.
A lovely mat of Lesser Celandine in the aviary glade, with splashes of Primroses to be found alongside a smattering of Bluebells.
Lying amongst the longer grass was a female Roe Deer, while a Rabbit bounded alongside to sit on one of the large Yellow Meadow Ant hills.
A Dunnock singing, 3 Wrens blasting out from the bottom of the hedgerow while a Blackbird sung. Suddenly the ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ drumming of Great Spotted Woodpecker caught the ear and the bird eventually tracked down to the top of a Plane tree, whose bark is all pale and cracked.