SISKINS AT LIDEN LAGOON

A bright and sunny morning for my walk around Liden Lagoon

I'd only walked a few yards from the car when I spotted a flock of siskins feeding in the alders, their colours standing out well against the blue sky.  On the lake were plenty of blackheaded gulls as well as the usual mallards, tufted ducks, coots and moorhens. Also a number of Canada geese feeding on the grass, and the swan family. Also saw long tailed tit, tree creepers, chaffinch, blue tit and dunnock. A few photos from today are below. 

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FROSTY MORNING

A beautiful frosty morning for my drive to school,  saw this pheasant amongst the frosty grass on the side of the road, and managed to get a photo before he made his getaway!

pheasant in the frosty grass

view across frosty field

another field view

COATE WATER

For various reasons I haven't been out and about recently, but today I was able to spend several hours at Coate Water. I started off in Hide 1, where I had good views of a greater spotted woodpecker, as well as the other usual woodland species. Off to Hide 2,  and there were a number of ducks  around, then finally I decided to complete the circuit of Coate Water along Broome Manor Lane, to locate the post which is often used to attract nuthatches and marsh tits to feed on seeds, nuts etc. It wasn't too difficult to find, as there was a hanging feeder in the tree nearby, so I put out some food and waited. It didn't take long for the birds to appear; blue tits, great tits, chaffinch, marsh tits and nuthatches. The nuthatches always seemed to have the priority though, and other birds would wait till they had gone before perching.

Species seen during the afternoon included:

Canada geese, mute swans, cormorant, grey heron, great crested grebe, goosander, tufted duck, mallard, teal, pochard, gadwall, shoveler,coot, moorhen, kingfisher, dunnock, wren, bluetit, great tit, long tailed tit, robin, tree creeper, gold crest, nuthatch, blackbird, marsh tit, magpie, jackdaw, crow, wood pigeon, feral pigeon, herring gull.


A few photos from today are shown below.

blue tit

nuthatch

marsh tit

greater spotted woodpecker

the tree stump on Broome Manor Lane

feral pigeon

line of feral pigeons

FINCH CORNER AND STANTON PARK

I paid an early visit to 'finch corner'  this morning. Several bramblings, greenfinches, chaffinches blue tits great tits to be seen, also a pheasant. But sadly no yellowhammers or tree sparrows showed for me. 

brambling

greenfinch

chaffinch

Afterwards I went on to Stanton Park.  I put out some seed and later someone  ( a warden?) put out a whole lot more, including apples and fat balls. 

I was rewarded with visits to the bird feeder by a two nuthatches, coal tits, blue tits, chaffinches, great tits, robins and blackbird. No jay appeared for me though. 

nuthatch

blue tit

coal tit

a few snowdrops at Stanton Park

WHELFORD POOLS

I hadn't been over to Whelford for a while, so decided to pay a quick visit after school today while the sun was still shining,

I was pleased to see a variety of ducks on the lakes, including, mallard, teal, tufted, gadwall and shoveler although they all kept their distance.  Also noted cormorants, mute swans, magpie, goldcrest, redwing, blue tit, great tit, coots, moorhens and great crested grebe.

I also noted some early primroses.

LIDEN LAGOON

I decided to visit Liden Lagoon today, a place I had heard of but not been to before. It consists of a lake with path all around it and two islands. Not a particularly large lake - it took about 10 minutes to walk around- but it did have a variety of waterfowl .e.g gadwall, pochard, tufted ducks, ,mallards, canada geese, swans, heron, great crested grebe, coots and moorhens.   Also a rather strange looking mallard x indian runner duck. Previous visitors have also noted common gull, teal and little grebe but these weren't visible today. 

mallard x indian runner duck?

black headed gull

mallard (m)

a pair of gadwall making a getaway

view of the lagoon

a few of the tufted ducks

 heron with pochard in front

mute swan

some of the canada geese

early flowering daffodils

LOWER MOOR FARM AND BLAKEHILL RESERVES

It was such a beautiful winter's day today. A hard frost followed by lots of sunshine. As soon as I finished  from work, I took my sandwiches and  having filled a flask with hot chocolate drink, drove over to these two reserves on the Cotswold Water park.

At  Lower Moor Farm,  the lake was frozen, but when I put out some bird seed, the bird table soon became very busy. I had some lovely views of bullfinches, the male one stayed around for ages, as well, as reed buntings, dunnock,chaffinches, robin, blackbird, blue tits, and great tits. 

However, it wasn't only the birds that were hungry as a family of rats (2 adults and 4 young) spent a long time clearing up the seed on the ground!. It was compensated by sights of a couple of  foxes on the opposite side of the lake though!