Wet Saturday Morning

So much for the cold frosty start with some wet stuff coming in later! Don't worry I'm not going to get on my soap box again and start going on about the weather forecast. As a Tree Sparrow slave I had to make my usual visit to feed on Rawcliffe Moss this morning, and unfortunately it was either raining, hailing or sleeting all the time I was there. This meant that my walk round was cut to a minimum.

I have been mixing some barley in with my bird food to make it go further and try and cut the cost of running the feeding station. One of the unfortunate results of this is an increase in the number of Woodpigeons coming to the feeding station and when I looked down the track from the gate this morning there were 30 on the seed.

Thrush wise I only had a couple of Song Thrush, a handful of Blackbirds and calling Redwings that I couldn't see. No Fieldfares at all. Seven Yellowhammers fed from the Pheasant feeder and a Kestrel perched on top of a single hawthorn kept a watchful eye. Numbers of Tree Sparrows had increased, as expected, to a more respectful 140 and 19 Chaffinch were associating with them.


As the weather was fairly atrocious I decided that I would cut back through Curlew Wood to the car to try and keep dry and also in the hope that I might flush a Woodcock or two. I did keep dry, but didn't flush any Woodcock. All I did flush were two Grey Partridges from the rough field next to the wood.

I then nipped to my office to top the feeders up there and as soon as I had filled the sunflower heart feeders two Nuthatches were straight in.