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

Click here to read the rest of this post.

Six wild boar, two pigeons and a fox

Here's some assorted videos from our trail camera for you... First, the largest group of wild boar we've seen yet, and the first time the male is with the others:

Next, one wood pigeon chasing another one in front of the camera:

And finally, two videos of a fox. First, in the early morning, with the camera still in infra-red mode, and then later in the day, but also with an unidentified creature running very fast the other way along the path - any ideas what it is? It's about 8 seconds in, and you'll probably want to switch the video to HQ mode to see it.


We've now moved the trail camera to the other side of the wayleave, into the wood that my friend Alex owns. It's by an animal trail and a seasonal stream (dry at present), so it'll be interesting to see what it picks up...

Mike

Click here to read the rest of this post.