Deep and Crisp and Even

Redesdale enjoyed something of a thaw last Saturday but the days since have seen the winter's grip on the valley re-tightened. Thankfully, there's been no more snow but today, having to travel five miles outside the village to the nearest Post Office, I thought the roads quite unpleasant to drive along. I was glad just to buy stamps for my Christmas cards and, once back in the village, some vegetables and a woolly Peruvian-style hat at the mill shop before returning home for my lunch-time soup and a sandwich and an afternoon with Patrick Barkham's enchanting The Butterfly Isles, which I am very much enjoying and can thoroughly recommend.

When leaving the mill, this view of sheep feeding in an adjacent field caught my eye ...


And in the garden, the birds return again and again to the food I put out for them at their temporary feeding station on top of the wall at my front door. Here's another of the Brambling pictures I took from my living room window last week ...

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla)
And a Christmas-card Robin ...

Robin (Erithacus rubecula)

Bramblings in the Snow

The snow in my garden on Thursday morning was three feet deep and the most convenient way for me to feed the birds was to place small portions of their favourite foods along the top of the wall at my front door.

From my living room window I watched three male Bramblings, a large mixed flock of Chaffinch, four Greenfinch, a female House Sparrow, three male and two female Blackbirds, individual Blue, Coal and Great Tits and a Robin visit the food. As might be imagined, I was particularly pleased to see the Bramblings. I think this is a first winter male ...

Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla)

Wallington West Woods

I enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon at the observation hide in Wallington's West Woods yesterday. The weather was fine, if suddenly very much colder after the recent mild spell.

Activity at the two feeders was frenetic: Chaffinch, Nuthatch, Robin and Blue, Great and Coal Tits were all regular visitors. Happily, the ground-feeding chaffinches were joined by a group of four Brambling; I was particularly pleased to these as they are still to return to my Redesdale garden this year. Two male Great Spotted Woodpecker's were present and a Jay put in an occasional appearance. A single Red Squirrel popped in and out to feed from nuts it found on the ground.

A male Brambling (Fringilla montifringilla)
A male Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus major)
Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)
I include a picture of the Jay (Garrulus glandarius), only because I am pleased to have photographed one for the first time (it's certainly no prize winner).

Garden Birds

It's five and a half years since I moved to the Rede valley and, coming here from a small house with an almost birdless back-yard garden in the suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne, it has always been a pleasure, and sometimes a great surprise, to watch the various birds that visit or fly over my garden. I am lucky here to have a small mixed wooded area immediately in front of the house which includes white poplars and Scots pine and provides cover for the birds when visiting the feeders.

Very occasionally, a new bird is added to the list; the stars this year have been the Redpolls that appeared out of the blue on the first day I put up my new nyjer seed feeder in late February. Long-tailed tits also found, but seem subsequently to have forgotten their way to the garden this year. It's not a very large list, some 40 species at most, but when the weather or something else stops me from going out, they all help brighten the day.

The list includes the males, females and young of most but not all of the following: Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Chaffinch; Brambling, Siskin and Redpoll; Coal, Blue, Great and Long-tailed tits; Blackbird, Song Thrush and Fieldfare; Reed Bunting and House Sparrow; Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff; Pied Wagtail, Wren, Robin, Dunnock and Nuthatch; Great Spotted Woodpecker and Tree Creeper; Tawny Owl and Sparrow Hawk; Rook, Carrion Crow and Jackdaw; Starling and Pheasant with Heron, Swallow, House Martin, Swift and Buzzard flying overhead.

Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Blue Tit (Parus caeruleus)

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)

Bramblings in my Redesdale Garden

I have been a little surprised by a pair of bramblings, lingering into late April in my Redesdale garden. The female is active this morning but I have not seen the male for a couple of days so perhaps he has moved on. I know that bramblings sometimes stay as late as May and have, albeit rarely, bred in the UK. Whatever the story with this pair, it is a delight to have them in the garden.

On the 30 April, the female was not seen, so she too might have moved on. The two pictures below were digiscoped using my Nikon ED50 fieldscope and Nikon Coolpix P5100.