Before the Storms

With the forecasts threatening stormy weather I decided to take advantage of a mild morning to fit in a visit to Stockers Lake before I needed to wear wellingtons. At first glance the lakes were much as normal with coot, morhen, tufted duck. mallards, mute swan, a pair of gadwall and the occasional cormorant.

As I progressed round the lake it was clear that there were much larger numbers of black headed gulls than usual, which country lore would have as a predictor of storms. I didn't count them but there were a decent number of red-crested pochard with a few common pochard among them which was handy for comparison of field marks.

The tits are starting to form into flocks and I could hear a decent sized party moving through the trees but there were just enough leaves still in place to make identification difficult. It is time to start looking out for birds returning to the garden after the usual quiet spell in September and October.

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More Starlings

At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t...

Usual Suspects

With some cold dry weather there has been a lot of activity on the feeders this weekend. With three different robins visiting the garden there have been fewer fights than I would have expected. The sight of the weekend has been a robin regularly visiting the starling feeder with a pair of beady eyes peeping over the top of the fat bar. As I had run out of sunflower hearts I topped up the ground hopper with pinhead oatmeal which seems to have been very popular. I even had a song thrush inside the cage which is a first. Althogther the weekend has included goldfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, marsh/willow tit (I must learn how to distinguish those), blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wood pigeon. Unusually for this area a heron also flew across the garden during the day. I haven't seen any long tailed tits or greenfinches around here for a while and there wasn't a single house sparrow around during the weekend.

Forest of Dean

I had a day in the Forest yesterday, walking and then a ride on the preserved railway. The trouble with woodland is that you don't get the rapid views of multiple species that you get in wetlands. However, after parking at the Nags Head reserve I walked down to the Lower Hide. The ponds were pretty well down to muddy pools and I was treated to the unusual site of what must have been a family of nuthatches bathing. I had lost the sense of scale through the bins and I wasn't sure what I was looking at until a robin hopped into view to give me a relative size. The real treat was a nuthatch working its way up an oak tree. I then walked through the forest to Bix Slade and down the line of the old tramway to the wharf on the old railway by Cannop Ponds. No manarin ducks this time but I did see tufties, moorhen, and both pied and grey wagtails. I followed the railway back to the road, crossed back over the Cannop Brook and planned to follow a forestry track back to the reserve. Howe...

Chiltern Birder

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