Monday 4 March 2013

A bit of Woodland watching- A few year ticks!

6/02/13

A walk in a local woodland was fairly rewarding, however my true target species failed to appear, but they are fairly elusive at this site, but with spare time every Wednesday, i've been making regular visits to this woodland.
At one of the most famous locations withing the woodland, i was treated to awesome views of this Robin, as it decided to perch on a tree a mere 5 foot away! At one point, the bird even tried to walk over my boots it was that confiding!

Why is the site famous i hear you say? Well the tree above where i was standing is often frequented by a roosting TAWNEY OWL. This bird often just sits on one of the broken tree trunks in the wood, giving close intimate views of this usually elusive resident.

After a few hours searching likely spots for the resident pair of LesserPeckers drew a blank, i headed towards the feeding area, and i soon picked up a female BRAMBLING perched on the edge of the adjacent hawthorn, quickly followed by a stunning male!
I sat down on the bench adjacent to the feeders, and after some time, i witnessed 4 BRAMBLING (3 males) perched in the tree next to me at the same time.
I was hoping the birds would join the flock of Chaffinch and 2 Reed Bunting, but the birds didn't.

However, one of the male birds perched on a close Hawthorn bush not far away, and i was able to take some digi-binned pictures of it as it perched there.




A stunning Scandinavian finch, and one that i don't see enough of, so it was great to get a small flock at a local site, and being able to get decent views of them!
MB

3 comments:

Central Birder said...

Good to read about your Bramblings and also the Crossbills too. Where were your sightings, if you are happy to share etc?

midlands birder said...

Sadly its getting to that time of year where i will start to not post site details on my blog when i know scarce breeding species are present. It's a general rule i tend to follow every year.
Cheers
MB

Matthew Lissimore said...

The are two Tawny Owls at that location. One of them just tends to hide away most of the time further in the stump. Very nice area to photograph and bird watch.