Will's Wildlife: Ton up!

I 've got a couple of days of leave to use up by the end of march, so more in hope than expectation I'd booked this Monday off. I was delighted to see blue skies and sunshine when I woke up, so headed straight out to see what I could find. I was soon off to a good start, knocking off another of the bogey birds on my list, thanks to a pair of cooperative woodpigeons in the middle of the village.

The elusive woodpigeon!

I then made an overdue visit to the local brook. This has a lovely set of alders growing on the banks, and I was just thinking how nice it would be if some redpolls were to drop in, when one started dangling on a cone in front of me. I managed to get a few shots before they were flushed by a passing van.

Lesser Redpoll doing what they've supposed to

Such lovely birds they deserve two photos

Further along the path, cleavers were growing in abundance, and there was a variety of birdlife. Unfortunately the reed bunting, wren and redwings all disappeared unphotographed, but the fieldfare was slow enough to be added to my collection of dodgy record shots. It was soon joined by a pair of skylarks flying over an arable field, their song was a near constant companion on my walk.

Cleavers

Fieldfare

Skylarks (honest!)

The standard of photography didn't improve much when I reached the village of Sutton, where a Mistle Thrush was perched inconveniently backlit and with a mishmash of branches to confuse the autofocus. I took a break from bad bird photography to do some marginally better plant photography of some lesser celandine which had come into flower in the churchyard before being tempted back onto birds by some moderately cooperative long-tailed tits. These charismatic little fluffballs also have the honour of being species number 100 on the list - wonder what number 200 will be?