Saving myself for Spring..........

..........or that's what I keep telling myself when I am struggling to get out birding for any reasonable time mid-week. I can't wait for it to get light earlier so that I can get out before work, even if I am busy!

A quick call at my feeding station yesterday produced a Yellowhammer, 60 Tree Sparrows and 45 Chaffinches. Today I fed the Turnstones at lunchtime in preparation for an attempt to leg-flag some more birds this weekend. Some started coming in to the food and I was going to sit and hopefully re-sight some leg-flagged birds when a woman let her five, yes five, Terrier type things (you know the sort, more like articulated rats) off the lead and that was it, no more Turnstones!

A few Black-headed Gulls came in to feed after the dogs had left and the first Turnstone arrived back just as I had to leave. Hopefully things will be better at weekend.

Black-headed Gulls

 You can just make out the metal ring above the right knee on this 

Turnstone. Probably one of our birds from 2012