Frosty days

It's been frosty for a couple of days here now, so we took advantage of that today by going and collecting a couple of loads of logs for customers. Yesterday though, we went to the wood just to have a walk around in the sunshine. We wandered up the wayleave and over the hill, and I was pleased to get one of my closest photos of a blue tit yet:
We were surprised to see a flock of 4 - 500 wood pigeons - we often see 5-10 together, but not normally this many. Here's a few of them:
The other strange thing in the wayleave was this:
Quite rare for a coppice! Some kind of spruce we think, but we'd have to go back with an ID book to be sure.

We topped up the bird feeder of course, and sat down to watch the resident coal tits come to feast on it:We noticed one of them sitting in the 2-year old coppice, apparently pecking at the stem. I had no idea what he was up to until I got home and looked at the photo properly - he's got a sunflower seed between his feet!
I spotted him again a minute later doing the same thing, but this time up an oak tree:He wasn't the only bird interested in the food, there were several nuthatches as well - I think this is the first time we've seen more than one at the same time.
They normally like to look for food up in the trees:
But this one couldn't resist coming to grab something down at ground level:
Of course, there are some less welcome visitors:
but we soon chased them off!

Mike

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Woodland snow scenes

With all the snow there's been over the past week, there's been some great opportunities to get pictures in the wood, so here they are.

The wayleave:
The footpath, running along the border of Smock and Sail Wood:
Various views in Chestnut Coppice:
And over in Sweep Wood, we got pictures of the sign on Friday and Sunday - look at the difference!
The tracks are deep with snow - up to six inches in places:
We did a lot of bird feeding:
We waited around one of the feeding stations, and were quickly rewarded by ravenous birds - I got pictures of a Great Tit, a female Blackbird and a Nuthatch:
The snow is slowly thawing now, but we'll keep feeding the birds until its gone.

Mike

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Feeding the birds, and problems with squirrels

This post is mostly about birds in our wood:
but first let me digress onto squirrel damage...

Here's a young holly tree that's been gnawed, which we saw as we walked between Sweep and Grist wood:
This was too high off the ground to be a rabbit, so it was deer or squirrel I guess.

The following was certainly from squirrels though:
So much for squirrel proof! I guess they didn't know the squirrels would be able to unscrew the hook from the top of the bird feeder so it falls to the ground and lets them in...

And here's some more evidence - squirrel droppings:
So, we set about putting the feeders back up in places where it might be harder for the squirrels to get to them. We want the birds to be able to get some food during the current cold weather.
We'll see how we go. If the squirrels get them again, I'll be back with the air rifle next time and we'll be having squirrel for dinner (I'm not joking).

Anyway, the birds in our wood are either fearless or very hungry, because no sooner had we got the food out than they came down to eat it, even while we were still bustling around. Here's a Coal Tit scavenging for seeds dropped on the ground:
A Robin came straight to the usual place he hangs out on a dead wood pile, where we'd put some fat:
and a Great Tit found the seeds we'd put under a piece of wood leaning against a tree (we knew they liked going into this gap already). By the way, the rest of the photos are ones Tracy took.
Some Blue Tits also came, and found the hanging fat rings to their liking:
Within just a few minutes the birds were back at one of the feeders, so they must have been using it before the squirrels got to it:
Then a new arrival turned up - a Nuthatch. As if to prove his tree climbing abilities he came in via the rope:
He did get to eat, but before long a bossy Great Tit flew in, and so he had to fly out:
Last of all, the Coal Tit decided to come to the feeder as well:
and once the Great Tit had got out of the way, he was able to come down and feed:
Here's the Coal Tit making his escape - we did well with in-flight photos today!
And finally, the next couple of pictures aren't great, but I wanted to include them as it's a bird we've not seen in the wood before - a Treecreeper, creeping around on a tree, as you might expect:
That's all for now. I'm travelling around the UK for work for the next week, so I hope the snow doesn't cause any more chaos...

Mike

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