Very wet & windy this morning so a walk along the brook in the valley gave me some shelter.
2 Buzzards soaring overhead 1 Oystercatcher flying over Lots of Black-headed Gulls flying over Woodpigeons 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker 2 House Martins flying over Wrens Robins Blackbirds Pair of Garden Warblers. Made a brief visit across the brook into GM Blackcaps Willow Warblers Long-tailed Tits Blue Tits Great Tits Nuthatches Magpies Chaffinches Bullfinches
Walked up to the clough seeing hardly anything through Eagley & Dunscar, including a mooch onto a deserted golf course (people & birds absent except for a couple of crows).
Hardly any birds to be seen walking up through the clough except for a flock of 6 Siskins in flight. On the way back through I saw a couple of walkers looking at something with intertest. They pointed out a flock of 7 Reed Buntings in small bushes near the river. They are fairly regular in the top fields near Longworth Road but the snow must have driven them down into the valley.
Morning walk through the clough along the river. Afternoon walk along the top of the clough from Dingle Reservoir along a very overgrown little used path. A machete would have been very handy to cut through the balsam !
1 Buzzard 1 Kestrel 1 Pheasant 5 Woodpigeons 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker 20 House Martins flying above 100+ Swallows on wires at Hampsons 10 Wrens 6 Robins 2 Blackbirds 2 Chiffchaffs 1 Willow Warbler singing away. Sounded more like a spring arrival. 1 Goldcrest Lots of Long-tailed Tits, Blue Tits, and Great Tits 3 Jays 4 Magpies 2 Carrion Crows 18 Starlings 6 Chaffinches 1 Greenfinch 4 Goldfinches 24 Siskins 2 Bullfinches
1 Field Vole. When I almost stood on something in the long wet grass I expected a frog or a toad. This very wet individual was in no rush to scarper away seemingly not at all happy with the wet conditions. 1 Peacock, 1 Speckled Wood.
