A Happy (if slightly belated!) New Year!

As usual I was up and out for a walk around town early on the 1st, the highlights being a pair of Goldcrest, 3 Mistle Thrush chasing each other and a single Redwing in the supermarket car park! Redwings have been missing this winter so far, usually there are at least a dozen around the park from early November right through to Feb/March but so far i've only seen a couple of flocks flying over. 

Mistle Thrush

We spent our bank holiday morning at St Aidan's, it was lovely and sunny but very cold! It's always nice to add birds to a new year list, it's like seeing them new all over again! Some highlights were a low flying Red Kite, a diving Black-necked Grebe and lots of very flighty Lapwings. 

In the garden my husband found lots of fungi hidden amongst the ivy on our Laburnum trunk, I think it's perhaps Oyster mushrooms?

The garden has been packed with birds, when i've been at home it's non stop around the feeders all day long and it's a joy to watch. Now i'm back to work of course I barely see the garden in daylight during the week but I do get to see some lovely sunrises on my commute!

Spot the goats!

On first day back to work this week I had a walk in Churwell woods beforehand and saw a record number of Chaffinch by the feeders - at least a dozen. Elsewhere a Kestrel has taken to hunting a field on a regular basis now dog walkers have been stopped from using it. 

After work the same day after some information from local birders (thanks again!) I went back to the woods at duskish (it was quite dark) to see a brilliant patch tick in the form of a Barn Owl which has been seen around for some time. I thought we might have missed it as I was delayed leaving work a little but luckily our walk through the mud in the dark was worth it as we saw it quartering the fields for some time before flying through the woods. We saw it perched in a tree - a perfect Owl silhouhette - as we were leaving too! A great start to the year!

A Sunday morning visit ended up with us spending hours wandering around, even making it out to Paul's Pond as well as the dam.

Golden Acre was full of people as usual, most of whom seem to miss the extra few yard walk to the dam.

The birds were fighting over the food





The park was full of fungi


Including the amazingly coloured Fly Agaric


We sat quite a while in the Marsh hide, watching Blue, Great & Coal Tits, Robins, Mallards, Moorhens, Chaffinch, a female Bullfinch, a Wren, squirrels and several Nuthatch. It's not often I see these birds and they were a joy to watch.




After a brief chat with one of the regulars about news of possible recent sightings of otters on the dam, which people seem dubious about for now, we headed on to the dam hide. The feeders at the side where busy and out on the water there was a couple of Teal and plenty of Black Headed Gull but not much else about.




We took a walk through the woods and spotted several Long Tailed Tits and a Treecreeper and a lot of squirrels scrabbling about in the undergrowth.


Back near the marsh hide I saw my first Redwings of season, a flock of them being very flighty through a couple of the trees, they didn't land long enough for me to grab a decent photo but I watched through the binoculars till they flew off.

At Pauls pond there was a lone Goosander and the trees in the woods on the walk there were full of Woodpigeons, they were everywhere!


Some other views from the walk