Saturday morning walk

Instead of staying in bed on Saturday morning, I had my coffee staring at the bird feeder and decided to go for a walk to the park in the village where I live. I wanted to see if there are any migrating birds already.

Great Tits were loudly singing everywhere around. One even went into a nesting hole which looked like an old Green Woodpecker hole. Two Common Starlings were chasing each other and playing their courtship games. Green Woodpecker and Wood Nuthatch were noisily calling from the woodland.  A Mistle Thrush was also actively singing. Although some of the local birds are already getting ready for breeding, Bullfinches are still around in groups. At one spot there were a few males and further down the track there was a group of a dozen birds both males and females. Fantastic looking birds. One of my favourite species. A few Siskins were still around, which is a bit of a surprise.

The ice in the lake in the park has started to melt and a female Mallard has decided to make use of it. A male Eurasian Sparrowhawk dashed amongst the branches of the poplar trees chasing a small bird. I couldn't identify that one but at least the Sparrowhawk didn't get it. Perhaps I was going to identify it otherwise.

So in total, for an hour birding I had some 17 species. Here is a list of the birds I saw.

Eurasian Sparrowhawk - 1 male
Green Woodpecker - 2
Great-spotted Woodpecker - 1
Wood Nuthatch - 2
Great Tit - 10+
Blue Tit - 3
Marsh Tit - 2
Greenfinch - 2
Common Chaffinch - 3
Bulfinch - 20+
Hawfinch - 1
Blackbird - 3+
Mistle Thrush - 1
Jay - 2
Magpie - 1
Siskin - 3
Corn Bunting - 2