The Many and The Few

January hasn't been a great month for me healthwise.  Having missed the beginning with a cold I lost the end with a nasty chest infection.

In the mean time I managed another trip to Prestwick Carr, which didn't produce anything spectacular but did offer some nice sightings of the regular customers at the bird feeders.

On a chilly day with little wind,  I noticed three or four times trees in the distance with a raptor perched in the crown, as if waiting for some reason to get more active.  Distance made identification difficult but I reckoned they were sparrow hawks.

Sparrow Hawk

Walking along the subsided road there were no more signs of redwing or fieldfare but around three pairs of bullfinches were scavenging in the hedgerow.

Bullfinch

It's not often that bullfinches stay close but they seemed relaxed, particularly this female.  I think you often see them in January, feeding on fresh buds.

There was quite a party going on at the feeders, where someone had added some coconut halves and filled the wee tray with seed.  So I managed to get some quite good shots of participants that weren't members of the tit family.

Tree Sparrow

Chaffinch

Reed Bunting

The one that sort of got away was willow tit, which did visit sporadically.  It was showing interest in the bits of apple I had spread close to where I was standing and I thought there was a chance of a really good close up.  But it never stayed for more than just a few seconds and after about forty minutes, I got fed up of cold fingers and moved on at a brisker pace.

On the way back to the car there were a number of roe deer in the far distance.

Still trying to figure out the lack of non-tit small bird appearances in my garden, I wondered about the theory of a near neighbour that bird flu is to blame.

In this case it would seem to suggest that it has particularly affected the following species here:  bullfinch (which normally show up in January), nuthatch, woodpecker, jay and (in nearby trees at least) greenfinch.

However my complaint about poor sightings in Chopwell Woods was contradicted on the way to the doctor's yesterday, when I heard hundreds of small birds chattering high up in the birches near Chopwell East Field.  I think they were tits, but I did observe half a dozen chaffinches towards the end of the stoney road.