Pre-snow Park

Wind back to Friday, cause for one reason or another I've not been arsed to sit at the PC to sort out some pics and post. For the first time in a fair while, I was forced to be up and out relatively early. It was bloody cold and frosty, requiring a good window scraping before I could get going. I was heading out to get my first Covid vaccine dose - yes, I can't believe it happened either and I'll put it down to the efficiency of my GP Surgery and local NHS Trust rather than anything to do with the shower in Parliament. I'm not the first in our household to have it, as Isabelle got hers the week before as a frontline Nurse. She had the 'Pfizer should be three-week interval between doses but being strung out to twelve' vaccine and I've had the 'AstraZeneca derived from adenovirus extracted from Chimpanzee shite' vaccine. There was no choice in the matter. My arm does ache like buggery, whilst when I had the flu vaccine I felt nowt. However I have not grown excess hair or started craving PG Tips tea.

Anyway, I had to go to a vaccination hub that has been set up in a large event hire type place called The Kube that is right next to Oadby racecourse. On the aerial shot below, it is the right-hand red dot. The other red dot denotes the car park for Knighton Park, which as you can see appears to have something resembling woodland. It also happens to be just within the 5MR boundary, and the roadway between the two is the main road to head back home ....

After the jab I nipped over to see my Mum, just a bit further north on the edge of the City boundary, and then on the way home I decided to drop into the park for a mooch about. By then it was c10:00, crisp and bright. But it was late enough that there were plenty of dog-walkers trawling the main path and also mums with tots starting to gather around the play areas. As ever, it's easy enough to walk away from the madding crowd and enjoy some space, and as usual I've managed to grab a few snaps that make the place look a whole lot emptier than it actually was. I couldn't erase the noise of screaming kids though.

Knighton Park is long established, and has big areas with planted trees, some formal gardens, kids play area and butts onto some big open sports fields. It is exactly the sort of place within my 5MR that is likely to be a good bet for some species that might otherwise be found in woodland. I had bins, and enjoyed the quick walk around, but sadly did not see or hear what I was hoping for, ie: Treecreeper, Nuthatch and Siskin. I suspect a proper look around earlier in the morning and perhaps a couple of weeks or so later will be much more productive. I did find a small group of Goldcrests in the conifers in the above shot though.

I could only give it c45mins as I had another GP Surgery appointment to get to. Later in the afternoon, I had a walk out into the square and a bit beyond, heading down the lane, onto the meadows area and then walked Whetstone Gorse Lane. Still no Skylark - where are they? Another Red Kite drifted over, and I found a big mixed flock of Fieldfare (c150) Redwing (c80) and Starlings feeding in a flooded stretch of the meadows. The whole flock was very flighty so I couldn't get anywhere near for closer shots and left them to it quickly.

Whilst walking back toward home along Whetstone Gorse Lane, I took this photo on my phone which preceded the most bizarre birding experience I've had for a while ....

Just as the phone hit my pocket, an unmistakeable raucous squawk hit my earholes and I lifted the bins to see a Ring-necked Parakeet flying directly above and following the line of the trees you can see on the left in the above shot. This is the middle of sterile farmland in Leics. - not Surrey. We have had numerous sightings over the years in Leics. and Rutland of odd individuals that the former County Recorder always dismissed. However in the last decade, and particularly in the last three or four years there has been an increase in sightings and it has been added to the County list. We now appear to have two resident and growing populations - one in Evington and one in Braunstone. Neither of which I've ever made an effort to see, so this bizarre flyover was a County Tick! And it's not even my first VC55 parrot - years ago I was bemused to find a Budgie at Ketton Quarry.

All of this preceded the snow that we've had since. It snowed a little on Friday night, but that didn't last much beyond Saturday late morning. It started again last night which has just continued on and off through the day. I've been watching the garden feeders expecting something to drop in but no - just the same regular crowd. No Great Spotted Woodpecker so far this year, and no Bullfinch either. We've been getting up to 15 or so Goldfinches at a time for weeks, but today we had a flock of c40 battling for feeder space. Also one or two Greenfinches at a time but only briefly and generally once or twice a day. This is completely the other way around to how our garden feeders were a couple of decades a go when Greenfinches always markedly outnumbered Goldfinches. We've also had a couple of brief Chaffinches today - again they used to turn up here much more regularly.

The snow is still lying now, and has already just about recovered footsteps around the feeders. It's not exactly deep, but the kids around the estate have made the most of the day. I doubt it'll last too long though, back to floods next week I expect.

Here's some charmingly witty jingoistic 70s/80s television advertising ....

Another Surprise Finch

Been a busy couple of days, up and down ladders and stairs painting the hallway and landing. Today I did manage to spend some time in the garden though. Late this morning as I sat out on a quick coffee break I nearly spluttered it all over the place as a Greenfinch briefly landed on the fence and then flew off. Yes, a Greenfinch! No camera to hand, and seemed highly unlikely I'd see it again. C'est la vie. Back inside for another few hours of soul-drenching hard graft delightful DIY and I was done for the day. Cameras ready and I grabbed a net. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was beating down by that point. I was being given the complete run around by at least three individual Merodon equestris that refused to settle for a shot and all evaded the net. And then I heard not one, but it sounded like a family party of Greenfinches. I couldn't see them as I got ready with the camera, and then two shot out of the embankment scrub and disappeared. But I could still hear one wheezing and trilling a bit. You may need to turn the volume up and ignore the wind/motoway noise .....

Eventually I could see a fat motionless silhouetted blob in the twiggery, and managed to get a poor shot that I've had to lighten to reveal the glorious green and yellow blob.

Otherwise it seemed that there was more activity than in recent days, though not much was settling. Perhaps the biggest insect surprise came when I nipped back into the kitchen to make another coffee and noticed that a fly buzzing around the window was not your average housefly ...

Tachina fera - a first for the house/garden

Another first for the garden was this, although it is only a sp. for now ...

Altica sp. - almost certainly lythri, but ....

And a couple of firsts for the year ...

Episyrphus balteatus

Green-veined White

Also some good larval news, or at least I am pretty sure that this is what it is.

Early instar Orange-tip on Cuckooflower seed pod

Less good news for one larva. I idly pointed the camera at a Blackbird and when looking at the image noted something hanging off the edge of its beak ..

Garden tick in the snow

After another 9km or so in wellies yesterday, adding another five species to my Foot It list (Skylark, Yellowhammer, Sparrowhawk at last, Reed Bunting in the morning and Meadow Pipit in the afternoon) today was spent largely indoors apart from collecting Alex from a Cubs camping weekend (I kid you not). I've revised my Foot It target up to 68 (so I'm back to 100%) as I think this is a better reflection of a couple that I should have foreseen and that there are genuine surprises like Barn Owl. There are still a couple of species that I really should see from my original predicted list, plus a couple that I have a chance of seeing given the time and effort. Main constraint is that next weekend I'll be away in France.

But today I added nothing to the list. We had snow falling to some extent throughout the day, though it was mainly piddly little flakes that were not doing anything until mid-afternoon when it got heavier and added another layer on to what we already had. I spent a bit of time looking out at the various feeders in the hope that an elusive garden Coal Tit might drop in, and pointing the camera at various bits (though the shots through double-glazing in low light produced predictably soft or grainy shots). No Coal Tit, but much better was a garden tick Stock Dove. It wasn't a dodgy flyover either, it actually came in with a group of six Woodpigeons and spent time feeding on both the back and front gardens. I'm sure Stock Dove must fly over here quite frequently but I don't tend to spend time out in the garden looking up in hope - virtually all of my garden ticks these days are completely random or fortuitous moments.

Ticking Tits and Fighting Finches

Catchy post title eh?

This morning I awoke early with the intention of walking down the lane and getting some arty shots of frosty scenes. That went for a wotsit when the expected frost was hidden by snow. Not exactly a deluge, in fact it was just right with c1.5" - not enough to avoid driving, but enough to light up the kids faces and get out for some snowball fighting and sledging without being badgered to make a snowman. Before we went out to the park though, I watched the comings and goings at the feeders and also crammed in a quick walk down the lane. I'll post some photos of that later.

You may recall that last weekend I mentioned seeing a Coal Tit at Narborough Bog, and that it was the closest I'd seen one to home. We've lived here for 16 years and I've had feeders out in all that time - though obviously I can't and don't watch them every minute of every day. This morning inbetween videoing some of the regulars, I was well pleased to see a smart Coal Tit flit in, grab a sunflower seen and dash back to the embankment. It did so another 3 times, always too quick for me to grab a shot. I'll keep a look out and try another day.

I'm having to fill up the sunflower hearts regularly to sate the ravenous hoards of Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Chaffinches. Plenty of mealworms and sultanas going down aswell which is keeping the Starlings, Robins, Blackbirds and Dunnocks happy.

I really like Goldfinches with their red face masks, then again I also like Greenfinches with their greeny/yellow plumage tones - but which one is best .... there's only one way to find out .... FIGHT!

Note that the feeders are below the level of the top ports

All a bit calmer once refilled - again

Common, smart

Chaffinches a bit jumpy this morning ...

... and the Starlings

Tits, Nuts & Painted Lady

There - that post title should attract a few inadvertent hits. Mostly today I have moping about the house feeling sorry for myself with a massive banging headache. I wouldn't mind if alcohol had been involved, but it wasn't. So instead of driving off somewhere to enjoy the wildlife like I should have done, I had to make do with watching the locals on my various feeders. However I managed to miss the best bird of the day with the camera - a superb male Great Spotted Woodpecker (garden rarity) briefly landed in our tree and had a look at the nuts before heading off. Oriental Laughing Collared Dove Greenfinches Goldfinch Great Tit Tit on my seed Tit on my nuts Tit on the neighbour's plums Aside from the nice tit action, I was most surprised to see this nectaring on cultivated heather: Painted Lady Pretty sure I've never seen one this late in the year before.