A One Off...

The weather since New Year has discouraged excursions and cycle trips except for the most hardy.

With some reluctance and in need of exercise, I decided to take a walk in Chopwell Woods on Monday afternoon in freezing but sunny conditions.  I always expect the most common form of animal to be seen in Chopwell Woods is the domesticated wolf, and fear that I won't see anything like the amount of things I would see in the garden anyway.  On Monday, this comprised blue tit, great tit, coal tit, long-tailed tit, sparrow, chaffinch, bullfinch (3) and nuthatch as well as robin and blackbird.

This fear was largely fulfilled - just a few robins and tits around until I noticed an area near Victoria Garesfield where some birds were advancing from a patch of evergreens to drink in a small stream that hadn't frozen.

Some distance away using a lot of zoom, it turned out that one of the birds showing flashes of red turned out not to be a robin, but a redwing.

Redwing

Now this wasn't really a one-off as it's clear from what others have been posting that there is an influx of redwing in the area just now.

However, for me it was the first redwing I have seen since I relocated to the North East nearly eight years ago, so for me a definite landmark that made the whole walk worthwhile.

If I'd actually been looking for Redwing, Chopwell Woods isn't where I would have started.