A WALK INTO YEO VALLEY
WEATHER; sunny with light cloud and no wind, perfect birding weather. Temp 8C
My second recent walk into the valley next to our home produced more signs of spring and some last remnants of avian winter movements.
I watched the Long-tailed Tits building their nest, they have made progress and now your can see the base of the nest quite clearly.
You can just see the top of the base of the Long-tailed Tits nest here!
Long-tailed Tit 'shaping' the base of the nest.
My next sighting was that of a Treecreeper, this bird was calling on territory, I never saw its mate, but watch this space. If there is a pair of them they will start to make a nest nearby.
I assume this is a male Treecreeper, he was making all the noise
My biggest surprise of the morning was the presence of a large flock of .Winter Thrushes', the flock consisted mainly of Fieldfares, I counted 72 but I'm sure that there were a few I missed. With the Fieldfares I counted 12 Redwings and to my great surpise, four Starlings! Starlings are more uncommon on my patch than are the thrushes!!
Fieldfare below and Redwing sitting above it
two more Redwings showing some nice colour on their flanks, these birds were quite distant. A Fieldfare is also shown
typical pose of the Fieldfare with its wings drooping.
A Buzzard circled over me and landed further down the valley, I shall find their nest in the next few weeks. Another bird of note was a Kingfisher! A river bank had collapsed recently, it has provided a perfect nest site for this colourful gem, I had been checking out the area and today, bingo! A bird dashed away from the newly formed bank and I could see from the droppings around the base of the bank that a lot of activity has taken place, it is another place for me to watch.
another Fieldfare picture, can you tell that I love these winter Thrushes?
Other fly-over species were Cormorant, lots of noisy Herring Gulls, a pair of Mallard (I think they might be looking to breed on the stream) and a lots of Jackdaws. A distant Great Spotted Woodpecker was drumming and the usual common species were singing, Robin, Wren, Dunnock, Song Thrush and Chaffinch.
As I got back to my garden I looked up and high over the meadow I saw a bird of prey flying towards me, it was a RED KITE! My scope was already set up so I took a few digi-scope pictures of it. A Garden tick for the year!
my 'garden' first of the year, Red Kite