Garden birds are the best!

Hi 

With more snow overnight but only minimal during the daytime today, it provided an opportunity to clear the ground at the various feed-stations and restock the feeders yet again.

This morning there was a Kingfisher in the Brampton Valley below Hanging Houghton and 2 Lesser Redpolls at Blueberry Farm plus a Barn Owl, the usual stunning mostly white Common Buzzard and a Red Kite.

Virgin snow up to a foot deep at Scotland Wood (Kelmarsh Estate) provided an opportunity for tracking the local mammals and Pheasants and feeding the Robins that opted to stay for the winter.  Harrington Airfield attracted at least two Bramblings this morning, but with eight present this afternoon.   Again this afternoon the female Merlin rallied some ca 200 Skylarks over the top fields.  Skylarks and thrushes are perhaps the most obvious hard weather movers locally, with Skylarks running around on various partly-thawed country roads and calling in flight after dark.

Birds at Pitsford Res today included a single Brambling at both Christies Copse and at the main Old Scaldwell Road feeding station plus 3 Ravens over the Walgrave Bay.

Birds in the garden here at Hanging Houghton included many Fieldfares, a Redwing, 4 Lesser Redpolls, a couple of Bramblings and a few Tree Sparrows.  However they were all eclipsed when a Waxwing showed up on the impaled apples this afternoon.

Regards

Eleanor and Neil