Wednesday 13th January

The Fieldfare feeding frenzy continued on the Research Station site. Numbers of Fieldfares and Redwings have built up to huge numbers, I counted 50+ Fieldfares in a single, short orchard row, times this by the numer of rows, 15 and you have 750+ birds, and that's just from one small orchard. There must be between 2,500-5,000+ birds on site at the moment. Note all the apples on the trees that appeared in earlier photos (http://dittoneastmallingbarming.blogspot.com/2009/12/monday-21st-september.html) have now been eaten as there's so many birds around. Snow on snow again this morning. A small flock of Redpolls (7+) were still gracing the Silver Birch in South Street, Barming, feeding in the lower branches so affording good views. Quite a pleasure to meet these each day on the way to work. The roads were pretty atrocious, and after helping to push three cars up the hill I finally reached Heath Road where the sign seemed to sum it up! I took the track off North Street towards the research station and was suprised to see no other human footprints in the snow, although I quickly picked up the track of a fox that had lazily walked and sniffed along the path in the night. Rabbit footprints criss-crossed the track as wellas numerous birdtracks, including those of Blackbirds, Pheasants and Pigeons had been searching out morsels to eat. A female Kestrel sat out in an Oak surveying the snowy scene, a Green Woodpecker flew from the ground and a Grey Heron flapped high overhead. Twelve Blackbirds were seen on this short patch of bridleway and a Bullfinch called, unseen from the hedgerow.


Later, after attempting to count the winter thrushes in the orchard I took in the flock of 200+ Greylag Geese feeding in a cereal stubble field. A Greenfinch caught my eye, it appeared to have a very orange breast unlike the others in the flock - quite striking.