On my way home today I checked the ploughed fields around Nelson Hill for Golden Plover, with no luck.
I was walking back to my house via the Brockwell scrubland not looking for anything in particular when I noticed an orangey almost diamond shaped bird flying towards me low overhead. At first I thought it was a Snipe but I looked closer and saw it was a Woodcock.
Usually a bird I associate with cold winter days not mild spring days, I think that it is a very underrated bird.
I watched it fly silently overhead before landing in a patch of thorn bushes and out of sight.
I was just thinking back to the first time I saw a Woodcock, which was in winter 2001. It was snowing and I was watching out the window when I thought I saw a cat moving slowly under the Plumb (bird magnet) tree.
I went into the garden to investigate and a Woodcock came into the open before flying of over the fence calling as it went.
2 comments:
Like your blog.
I'm at the opposite end of the age range from you so am not much good at web tools anmd so don't think I will be setting up a rival blog.
My most unusual Woodcock sighting was over central Gateshead.
When I was your age and into my twenties I used to be out birdwatching most days and often 16 hours on a weekend day. Family commitments took over and I now tend to be an occasional birdwatcher. I must be the only one in Crammy not to have seen a Waxwing this winter. My one and only sighting was about 35 years ago on top of a butchers shop!
If you get any Siskins in your garden, try and shoo them over to Porchester Drive. See plenty flying over our garden, but have been waiting 18 years for one to land.
Vanellus
Hi Vanellus, thanks for the comments. I had two Siskins in the bird magnet in January for about 15minutes. There were some Waxers near Aldi a few weeks ago, not that far from Porchester, they seem to come to the berry trees around Aldi every winter.
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