What a grey day, as I begun my patrol across Durlston Country Park National Nature Reserve, it was only as I completed that a small patch of blue sky appeared, to provide some light.
However in the gloom I was able to see my first Fieldfare of the year. This thrush, the largest of the family, is very easy to distinguish by its churring call, which it had blurted out just before landing on the top of a Hawthorn, upon which berries were still evident. Its grey and brown markings only just visible in the drab light.
A little later a Redwing dropped into the midst of the Old Man’s Beard which was rambling across the Blackthorn scrub. The view of this migrant thrush reasonable, its pale stripe above the eye visible, but the red flash under the wing well hidden.
A squeaking call from behind me alerted me to a brilliant pink Bullfinch in flight, watched as it flew then landed in the uppermost twigs of a Field Maple where its reddish pink chest was paraded – just stunning.
The hedgerows are providing a supply of food for the birds still, including the two species of Spindle – European and Japanese, whose berries are both pink, although the Japanese variety has the smaller, harder and paler berries of the two.
A few round white Snowberries still to be found as are the small black berries of Wild Madder.
The scampering of some Grey Squirrels heard amongst the dead leaves, then spotted as they chased each other around the trunks of the Holm Oaks.
A flash of white and a Jay appeared, flying silently through the woods, while overhead two Peregrine Falcons sped through the sky, a striking silhouette against the greyness.