well, that was just about as bad as it gets weather-wise for birdwatching...slanting rain...all day. But it was a simple stubble field that was alive with fieldfares, yellowhammers, redwings, skylarks and linnets. Found Calvert and Gallows Bridge Farm and caught up with marsh tit and goldeneye but I think both places will be more productive in better weather. Again a fruitless search for med gull amongst hundreds of black headeds at Wilstone in a biting wind. Best of all it was great to get out with old mates.....

half term at last and managed a short trip out....far too cold at Wilstone with a biting wind and high water levels so tried College Lake and carefully scanned the margins....got snipe and then saw the oystercatcher on the island. Incredible how the latter are colonising inland. Pitsone hill did not offer up meadow pipit or yellowhammer.....

Watch this closely and see how the turnstone gets its name......

waxwing winter.....

when you are stuck in a smelly room all day, there can be no better tonic than to walk out of school and see a small flock of waxwings sitting in a tree in the central reservation along George V Avenue....brilliant.......

In the zoo....

there is surely an irony in the fact that I saw more house sparrows at London zoo yesterday than for the entire year so far. They have everything they need...old buildings with lots of cavities for nesting and the livestock that generate spilt feed and the flies that they need for their nestlings. i just hope they don't become as rare as some of the exhibits. Lovely to hear a blackcap singing from within the conifer hedge....not long 'til Spring.....

windy nights....

Every time I watch the wood pigeons fly into the uppermost branches of the trees opposite our house to roost I always wonder why they choose such an exposed, cold location. Surely nestled against the trunk in amongst some ivy...as I got in the car this morning the security light picked out one high up in the alder opposite holding on grimly in the strong gusts. Surely that's not the best way to spend the night....

hmm...not many opportunities for birding at the moment...leave in the dark and get back at dusk...but things will get better and I am looking forward to the return of Spring. Won't be long now before the first chiffchaffs start singing.....

air...

What is it with pied wagtails and playgrounds? Amongst all the ebullient gulls and corvids battling for discarded scraps they pick at invisible morsels on bare tarmac and hawk for minute midges over puddles...and have done so for as long as I can remember...you have to admire their resilience...