Were They Waiting For Me?.........

.........or did they recognise the man with the green bucket? It's that time of year again when I start feeding at my farmland bird feeding station on Rawcliffe Moss. I called yesterday morning to put the first lot of seed out and there were two or three Tree Sparrows hanging around the feeding station area and after I put the seed out within ten minutes there were 25!

 The first seed drop

After I put the seed out I had a bit of wander. I had two Yellowhammers in the hedge close to the feeding station and as I walked along the '97 hedge' I had 4 Skylarks and a Crossbill called heading north. There were very few Thrushes and all I had were 4 Blackbirds, Song Thrush, 4 Fieldfares and a Redwing. Six Snipe flew south and it was then time to leave and head back to work.

I was back at the feeding station again this morning before I had to head off to the Yorkshire Dales as I wanted to put up two large nut feeders as 'reserve' feed. I use these to hold the birds if they finish all the seed before my next visit. This doesn't happen often, but when it does the peanut feeders certainly hold the Tree Sparrows.

It was very windy this morning and the flavour of the day were the Pink-footed Geese; I had 1,860 heading south. Skylark numbers had increased to 58 and Fieldfare to 18.

I got caught out in a heavy hail shower, but it produced a couple of spectacular rainbows that I managed to photograph. See below. I was hoping to get to the 'obs' Thursday morning as there seemed to be a window in the weather, but this has now gone and it looks fairly unsettled into next week!