December 12th : Bramblings!
After a traumatic day yesterday (I won't go into that except to say it involved doctors, hospital & a false alarm on Mrs H's health front - all fine now, ta) it was great to have a birding day in which the weather was dry & bright.
And so out to Carrington Moss: ice in puddles but no frost, sky just scraped by thin cloud, sunshine & sharp air.
First up a party of Redwings (c.40) and almost second (just pipped by calling Coal tit) a Woodcock - out lazily from beneath birch & alder, where finches flocked nervously in front of me. Each step I took shook twenty from the branches to bound away - Yellowhammers with the Chaffinches.
Out into bright stubble, punching holes in icy runnels like treading on windows. Ahead a large mixed flock: hundreds of Chaffinches, Yellowhammers, Greenfinches, Goldfinches, Reed buntings; up to the trees & back to seedy earth. I edged my way sunny-side of them, closing the gap they were ever trying to widen. Sun-brightened multi-coloured flighty crowd, wing-bars & rumps sparkling in the light.
This flock I've seen a few times before - as you will know, and searched it for more exotic fare. Today I got lucky: scanning through the buntings & finches I found, first one, then three Bramblings. As if echoing my delight, a Mistle thrush began to sing from the pylon, fluty & mellow.
Then a familiar sound distantly: getting closer - there! Over 200 Pink-footed geese in a rippling line headed west. Then another skein - about 120 - followed, then two more lines, in all about 600!
Back in the birches another Brambling was calling - a loner who flew away soon after.
Skylarks & Stock doves swirled above the stubble & re-settled; Magpies strutted, Woodpigeon waddled. Three Herring gulls passed.
Then, from a thousand yards away a huge corvid flock rose & circled, so many I could hear their alarms. I scanned for the raptor - but once again it remained invisible. Along the hedge Fieldfares chack-chacked away & dozens of Yellowhammers skittered about the hawthorns. A Jay screeched a protest, a Kestrel (bulky female) glided off to perch pylon-ward.
Another field, another hedge. More Yellowhammers & Reed buntings - and a single Corn bunting (face-on like a huge Meadow pipit).
Out past a small lake - in a flooded corner - willows in water - I hear a Kingfisher & see its reflection darkly in the pool. Tufted ducks in the open, Shovelers in the edges, Coot & Moorhen. In the trees Goldcrests, Long-tailed tits & a Bullfinch - perched in sun, improbably handsome. One Siskin, tiny in comparison, flies over him, calling.
On & on into cold air, now approaching the re-settled corvids, a knot of Starlings spirals. Meadow pipits call, a sudden Raven "cronks" overhead, another Kestrel hovers. On path-side weeds a Stonechat, perched like a lollipop, good enough to eat.
Down a birch-straddled byway I hear the third flock of Long-tailed tits of the day. Then a Willow tit's definitive call puts me onto just one - the only one of the day, but it was unusually obliging, feeding with Blue & Great.
Across another field. This time a flock of forty or fifty Corn buntings kept their distance, but flew eventually around me, their calls like the fizzing of electricity cables. And with them? One calling Brambling! Two Buzzards flap away.
Back to my starting point. Good views of three Bramblings - that orange so lovely - white bellies showing out. In the distance another bait-ball of starlings swirls above a Sparrowhawk. In the stream the Teal glint greens in slanting light, a Grey wagtail stabs a call somewhere.
I head hungrily home, stopping off for some of Mr.Kipling's exceedingly Brambling apple pies!
