Brambling Bonus

For the second time in a week I have succeeded in filming five species of Thrush feeding on  one rowan tree. click here This time there was a bonus for as I was about to go home at 3pm a male Brambling appeared and fed on the ground below the tree for a good ten minutes paying no attention to all the heavy lorries passing by only feet away. It almost made up for missing the Crossbills the other week but not quite!!

The extremely mild weather continues with four different  Robins around the garden in song at dusk  last week accompanied by Mistle Thrush, Song Thrush and Blackbirds. Even so there were twenty three Goldfinches feeding in the garden together and a record three Song Thrushes on the 25th. A female  Sparrowhawk caught one of the Blackbirds on the 27th but as I rushed out of  the house it could not carry it away so the Blackbird escaped to live another day. The saying “Not in my back garden”  comes to mind.

On Hopwood on the 28th a Woodcock was seen to leave the birches and fly to the field to feed fifteen minutes after sunset.