Hawfinch social


Bramblehall Wood was bathed in glorious sunshine, which no doubt helped swell the number of birders who joined me on the muddy footpaths to witness yet more Hawfinch action. It was a pleasure to watch these birds along with John, Lindy, Jan, Graham, Piers, Paul and Lee - it made the morning all the more memorable.

It was not so pleasurable to be told that two birders (even though they had been asked not to) entered the wood which is clearly private. This brings up three things - (a) they lack fieldcraft (b) they have no consideration for others (c) they are showing a lack of respect to the landowner. Once they have left the area and returned home it is us local birders who suffer any consequences. No wonder the suppression of birds is making a comeback...

Anyhow, back to the fun stuff. I recorded a minimum of 250 Hawfinches which were on show as early as 07.10hrs when I arrived on site. There were two episodes that I would like to share with you. The first occurred at the southern end of the wood at about 07.45hrs. Birds were perched up in an area of scrub and I managed to hide myself away directly opposite them. After five minutes they started to fly across the field towards me, alighting in a large Yew that was only 25m away. I couldn't see them once they had landed, but I could count them as they came in - ones, twos and threes, no large flocks - this quickly building up to 71 birds before something spooked them and they exploded into the air and scattered. Count abandoned!

The second was shared with several other birders. We came across a Yew, just off the path, that was full of Hawfinches, our estimate being 60-70 birds. Although wary, (some had flushed), we'd managed to creep up to them with some success as c20 were still left feeding. A good 15-20 minutes were spent watching them, surrounded by calls. There were several bright males involved which took most of our attention. We all just stood back and took it all in. Marvellous stuff.

I was not as successful elsewhere. Four were found at Higher Ashurst (just north-east of Bramblehall Wood) and another four were seen on the south-eastern slopes of Mickleham Downs. Another feature of the morning were the Marsh Tits, up to five belting out their song.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more