Sun, clouds and snow - Part 1

Friday was going to be a sunny day - well, thank you yet again to the Met Office for getting it all wrong. By the time we arrived at Warnham (they don't open until 10), clouds had put an end to the prospect of good light for photographing woodland birds.

The gate was still locked and a few birders were waiting, among them Pagham Birder - whose blog I always follow with great interest - and his grandson and it was lovely to catch up! They were hoping to see a brambling or two; unfortunately the only time one of the females made a brief appearance was when they had just left the hide for a few minutes. For some reason, the Warnham bramblings are terribly flighty and both times the bird showed, someone walked past or into the hide talking loudly, spooking all of the finches. Some people seriously seem to think that the definition of 'bird hide' is 'a great place to have chats and picnics with friends'. Incredibly annoying, time and time again!

Female brambling grabbing a few sunflower seeds before disappearing again.

BTW, 'my' brambling is still gracing our garden with her presence - she too is very easily spooked, maybe it's a brambling thing.

Anyhow, as always, it was wonderful to watch the many woodland birds and listen to them chirping. Very enjoyable. Even the sun came out a few times.

Female blackbird looking very smart.

Peanuts for breakfast? Don't mind if I do! Jay.

 

Long-tailed tit calling. So cute!

I've never seen so many siskins at Warnham as this winter.

Female siskins.

 

Male siskins.

Warnham's got to be the best place in Sussex to watch and photograph siskins and redpolls!

 

 

 Lesser redpolls

The males are now coming into breeding plumage. Beautiful!

 

As I am not sure how many photos you can publish within one blog post, I'd better stop here...to be continued (see "Sun, clouds and snow - Part 2")!

My own personal brambling - and a long-tailed tit is the big winner!

On Tuesday morning, when I stopped briefly to watch the many birds feeding in our garden, I spotted a beautiful female brambling. Not a garden visitor you get to see from the comfort of your armchair every day! And the little bird - we named her Brambolina, haha! - has been visiting every day since Tuesday, along with huge numbers of chaffinches, greenfinches and all of my other regulars, such as starlings, house sparrows, goldfinches, dunnocks, blackbirds, collared doves, woodpigeons, great spotted woodpeckers, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, magpies and a pied wagtail.

Meet Brambolina! :)

Video and photo taken through glass, with a small digital camera so please excuse the poor picture quality.
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A few long-tailed tits visited last week as well. I love these cute little birds. When the company I order my wild bird seed from, Ark Wildlife, announced on Facebook that there would be a photo competition every month this year, I entered a long-tailed tit photo for the January comp. Guess what - I won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My prize is a £30 voucher which I will very soon spend on sunflower seed and peanuts. I'm very happy and so are "my" birdies...a big thank-you to the lovely long-tailed tit in my photo for posing for me! :)

Finches Galore at Warnham LNR

Robins, blackbirds and great tits have been singing for a while now and with a temperature of 10 degrees and glorious sunshine yesterday morning, it almost felt like a spring day. We decided to pop down to Warnham LNR, always a great place to visit - plus we hadn't been since last September, when the osprey was there.

In winter, I particularly enjoy spending time in Woodpecker Hide, watching the woodland birds. There's always a great selection of birds on and around the feeders, including reed buntings, marsh tits and even the occasional water rail. It is also where I found a common redpoll in March 2011.

I was hoping we might spot a brambling - not an easy bird to catch up with in Sussex. I had not actually seen one at Warnham before, although I do know they used to turn up most winters - but not in the last couple of years.

So we spent a very enjoyable afternoon watching (and listening to!) dozens and dozens of very vocal finches. Chaffinches, goldfinches, lesser redpolls - many males showing off their bright red heads and chests - a huge flock of siskins and a lone greenfinch.

 Male lesser redpoll - isn't he beautiful?

Male siskin posing for the camera.

 Female lesser redpoll, looking pretty in the sunshine.

Female siskin, beautifully marked.

And then I spotted her in the big tree behind the feeders: a female brambling! She eventually landed on the ground and started feeding alongside chaffinches, siskins, redpolls and reed buntings. Oh, and two moorhens and a pair of mallards!

  Little beauty!

Enjoying the sunflower seed.

 Beautiful markings on her back and wings...

A second female brambling also made an apperance, as did a small flock of long-tailed tits. These little cuties never fail to make me smile!

Just as we were about to leave, a male great-spotted woodpecker appeared and wanted to have his photo taken. I happily obliged!

I'm already looking forward to our next visit to Warnham!

Brambling!

Just being treated to fantastic views of a female bramling...in my garden! Only the second time ever I've seen one here (first time was a male in the snow before Christmas). She seems to like my bird seed. :) Birding from the comfort of my desk...just need to turn my head. Brilliant. :D Also got my bins for some really good views!

There's also a greenfinch - a fairly rare visitor - and all the regulars, including blue tits, great tits, dunnock, chaffinches, blackbirds, goldfinches, collared doves and starlings. Need to top up the seed feders later!

New Forest

On Wednesday, we decided to spend the day birding in the New Forest. Quite a drive but we were hoping to finally connect with a Dartford warbler - the last one we saw was at Pagham Harbour last October. None on Ashdown Forest so far this year, which is a bit worrying - I hope they all survived the winter!

Our first stop was at Blashford Lakes. We saw a lovely female lapwing from Tern Hide and a wonderful, fluffy little grebe in breeding plumage, goldeneye and gadwall (no water pipit, snipe, sandmartin or ringed plover though!).

Female lapwing

Little grebe

We then moved on to the Woodland Hide where I was hoping to get a few more shots of brambling before they all fly off to their breeding grounds. After about 10 minutes a beautiful female appeared and I got some nice shots of her (much better than the poor record shot I got before!), followed by at least 4 lovely males, all coming into breeding plumage (one looked particularly smart).

Female brambling

Male brambling

We also had lovely views of a nuthatch, a coal tit collecting nesting material, a siskin, a lesser redpoll, a greenfinch, a wren and some blue tits.

We then tried 'Picket Post' heath but could not find any Dartford warblers. There were loads of meadow pipits, a raven and a fantastic buzzard circling right above us.

Buzzard

I also saw a common lizard enjoying the sunshine.

And of course there were some beautiful ponies! Being a horse person, I always love seeing them.


Young New Forest pony

So we drove around for another 20 minutes trying to find a certain site that we know is supposed to be good for Dartfords. Again we walked around for what felt like 50 miles but no Darties. More ponies of course, a mistle thrush, meadow pipits, skylarks and stonechats. Time to give up?

All of a sudden, on the way back to the car we thought we could hear the song we had been hoping for all day...and scanning the gorse nearby we saw him: a fantastic male Dartford warbler! Brilliant!

Male Dartford warbler

We also saw the female perched on top of the gorse behind the male.

Female Dartford warbler

Looking up, I noticed a bird of prey flying low over the heath. Wow, a beautiful male hen harrier - a lifer!

What a great day!

Blashford Lakes - 18th January 2011

We had a lovely sunny (!) day at Blashford Lakes (New Forest, Hampshire) last week. We'd never been before (and it is quite a drive - took about 2 hours to get there). I was particularly keen to see siskin, redpoll and brambling and maybe a bittern. While everyone in the bird hide except me caught a glimpse of the latter (*grrrrrrrrrrr*!!), the finches did not disappoint. I managed to get some nice shots. I'll post the links to the photos as soon as they have all been edited and uploaded to galleries.
We are definitely going to visit Blashford Lakes again!

Male siskin.

Male brambling.

Male lesser redpoll.