Tuesday 16 February 2016

A Bounty of Barn Owls!

A trip to Chatton from Lowick on Saturday night rewarded with one Barn Owl at our road end(Lowick);one near Holburn and another near Hetton!
Our return journey caught a full face view of another fine bird sitting on top of a hedge near Chatton!
A daytime trip to Twizel last week rewarded us with the lovely sight of a Barn Owl flying through the ruins of Twizel Castle and out into a nearby tree where it perched for five or so minutes despite some harrying by Jackdaws and Rooks!

Friday 12 February 2016

Seasons

Early morning around Branton Ponds had a feel of winter, the ponds themselves were 80% frozen. This helped to concentrate the birds onto the small areas of open water, Wigeon are still in good sized numbers along with Teal, Tufted Duck, Mallard and 2 Pochard. Siskins ,Bullfinch, Lesser Redpoll and various members of the Tit family fed greedily amongst the Alders. In stark contrast when the sun came out and the air warmed up a bit we came across our first Adder of the year, a small male which was our earliest ever by 2 days, could spring be just around the corner?