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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fozzybear" data-source="post: 1335249" data-attributes="member: 69297">Another visit last Sunday turned up more new species sightings here for me: a female bullfinch, a meadow pipit and a greater spotted woodpecker. The birds were rather jumpy with all the morning joggers and dog walkers though, so views were not very good.I went back on Friday afternoon and spent a wonderful couple of hours slowly walking through, managing to photograph the goldcrests in the hawthorns, of which there were a number! I saw lots of tits (blue, great and long-tailed) and chaffinches in the same area so assume they'd all formed a loose flock. Along the densely tree'd edge of the reserve I walked slowly and carefully and watched more goldcrests feeding, some rabbits near one of the warrens and up high a Mistle Thrush! A bogey bird for me, I keep seeing Song Thrushes and mistaking them for Mistles, but no question this time - high in the hawthorn, a fair size bird with flattened spots to it's belly. A quick view through the branches and it was off through the trees.More rabbits in the open area and a grey squirrel rooting around in a dense bush, then under the big oak and out to the playing fields, where another photographer alerted me to a kestrel flying in the distance. We watched it hovering for a while, chatted about the place, birds we'd seen (he'd seen the grey wagtails recently, good news!) and about camera kit (he had a Canon 40D and 70-300mm IS lens - Canon equivalent of my Nikon kit), then parted. No Siskins in the Alders today, very quiet apart from some Carrion Crows out on the pitches.A walk back through the dense edge again turned up a little wren, some dunnocks and blackbirds but it was fairly quiet, the light starting to fade now. I took a quick look at the weir in case a grey wagtail was about, noting the quickening water - the rains have lifted the river a little, but not much. I scraped the worst of the mud and leaves from my boots, packed away my camera and binoculars and headed back into town, and home.I have some more Goldcrest shots in the <a href="http://www.birdforum.net/gallery/showgallery.php/cat/500/ppuser/69297" target="_blank">Gallery</a>, and on my <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulforsdick/" target="_blank">flickr </a>page.</blockquote>

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