This week’s photo is of the male Brambling that fed for one day only last week. The snow fall stopped him migrating back to Lapland but it couldn’t stop his plumage coming to its Summer best when he will have an all black head. The only birds missing from the garden this Winter have been Redwing and Fieldfare. At the moment we still have feeding at least a dozen Reed Buntings, six Bullfinches and for the first time ever three Redpolls.

A search in the hills failed to produced Woodcock and Merlin but I did see a Snow Bunting and a Twite which are elusive birds these days. Even walking the dogs along the canal yielded a feeding male Goosander and a Green Woodpecker yaffling.

After last week’s heatwave it is typical that Winter should return with a vengeance and one inch of snow covered the garden on the fourth. As a result of the harsh weather we had a superb male Brambling visiting the garden on that day and the following day a female Brambling. (photo next week). It was eight years and a day since we last had a Brambling in the garden and it was totally unexpected in a Winter that has had very few Brambling in the country. In addition to the Bramblings we had two Redpolls, fourteen Goldfinches, six Bullfinches and possibly up to a dozen different Reed Buntings that are all coming directly from the golf course.

A trip out into the hills on the fifth had roads just passable and massive drifts of snow. One of the Woodcock sites was snow covered and it was somewhat weird to see my first Wheatear on the snow. Just as strange was watching a male Ring Ouzel gathering nesting material around drifts of snow and then flying back to its traditional cliff that was thankfully snow free.

On the 22nd March whilst driving down the M6 at Preston a Swallow flew across the road in front of my car. It was the earliest Swallow I have ever recorded by at least a week and heralded the arrival of a fantastic week of Summer weather with temperatures of over 20°C each day. There has been an explosion of butterflies with 5 Peacock, 4 Small Tortoiseshell and one Comma, all seen on Hopwood in one day.

During the week I have filmed a Kingfisher digging its tunnel and a pair of Long Tailed Tits lining their nest with feathers. (Photo next week) Normally they seek out white feathers for their nest and will readily take any that I put out for them. This time they picked them up but instead of taking them back to the nest they disposed of them away from the nest. I had obviously found the only pair of Long Tailed Tits that did not like white feathers!

Whilst the warm weather has produced very early foliage it was in fact too hot for basking Adders and my first visit of the season produced no sightings. More disappointing though has been the disappearance of two of my regular pairs of Long Eared Owls – does this mean there is a shortage of voles this year.

This Winter has not been the best for numbers of birds so I couldn’t resist the temptation to include two of my favourite photos I took of a Hawfinch. I waited a lifetime to capture on film this elusive bird and I have some amazing clips of the Hawfinch breaking open Hornbeam fruit with its incredible bill. It will certainly be one of the highlights of the next DVD on Pennine Wildlife.

The recent high temperatures have brought out four Small Tortoiseshell butterflies on the 23rd and four Peacock butterflies on the 24th. Ironically it was in the Ribble valley today, Sunday, that I saw a flock of fifty Fieldfares – the largest I have encountered this Winter! The warm sunshine also gave me good views of a Goldcrest bathing in a pinewood stream.

In the garden the Willow Tit is still a regular visitor, mainly in the late afternoon. The six Bullfinches are now in pairs with at least six individual Reed Buntings feeding.

When you spend a lifetime observing birds at the nest it is always sad when a nest you have been watching is predated, especially when it is an elusive species like a Crossbill. I have spent a fortnight filming both birds going to and from the nest that was thirty foot off the ground on a branch overhanging a road. One day all was well and the young were near to fledging but at 9am the following morning a crow flew from near the nest and part of the nest was on the road below, with no sign of the young. There is nothing we can do about natural predation but you have to feel sorry for the adult Crossbills who spent the last two months totally devoted to rearing their young, all to no avail.

A five day non birding visit to Speyside somehow produced the Ptarmigan photo. We had decided to walk up to the restaurant at the top of Cairngorm mountain taking our two Golden Retrievers with us. Unfortunately half way up the climb we took the wrong path, making the climb much longer than it should have been. However, whilst traversing this extra bit we came across seven Ptarmigan that provided me with some good photos, even though the wind did blow my camera and tripod over on one occasion! Thankfully our eleven year old retriever just about made it to the summit and like us was thankful for the Funicular Railway down the mountain.

A day out to view the Dolphins in the Beauly Firth produced no sightings. Clearly, looking for Dolphins produces no more guarantees of a sighting than looking for birds.

The A9 is the main road through Speyside and results in considerable mortality to its wildlife. In addition to an abundance of dead pheasants we have seen the remains of three Mountain Hares and two Pine Martins. Sadly a fast trunk road is a major hazard for local wildlife.

During the week I paid a return visit to a friend’s garden near Huddersfield in an attempt to film the Redpolls that he was feeding. Four niger seed feeders were attracting up to fifty Redpolls including the superb male shown in the photo. Unfortunately they hardly ever perched away from the feeders to provide the shots I was after. Two hours was spent trying to obtain video of one perched before it alighted on the feeder but all to no avail. It was an incredible experience to watch so many Redpolls feeding in one small garden.

The day after what should show up on my garden feeder but a single Redpoll – the first one ever to feed in our garden. In fact the week has been good for feeding birds in the garden with at least six Bullfinches and six Reed Buntings coming at different times, the Bullfinches mainly in the morning and the Reed Buntings in the afternoon. On eight of the last eleven days we have had twenty or more different species feeding in the garden.

I have also made trips to the Ribble valley in an attempt to film breeding Crossbills. Two nests have been inspected but despite of having thirty foot scaffolding available both were impossible to film as one was forty foot off the ground and the other was on a branch over a road. One day I might obtain film of this stunning species at the nest but at the moment it still remains just a dream.