Mendip Winter Wonderland

Following on from a posting on my wildlife blog, I've added some more images of the hoar frost on the Mendips, Somerset on January 2nd. Hope you like them.

Frozen at Sand Bay and a Peregrine

Needing to de-stress myself from the madness of Christmas I thought I'd have half an hour at Sand Bay before work, doing my usual stationary watch over the Reserve, even though the tides were not good. The sea was out there somewhere apparently.

An absolutely freezing day, so cold in fact the sand had frost on it. Quite quiet bird wise, 1 Long Tail Tit, 4 Magpie, 10+ Curlew, 20+ Shelduck, 1 Blue Tit, 1 Black Backed Gull, 2 Herring Gull, 1 Chaffinch, Female Stonechat, Male Blackbird, half a dozen Starlings, 1 Collard Dove, 1 female Kestrel. Just before I left a mixed finch flock rose out of the reeds and settled on the bushes. I was pleasantly suprised to see this was a Greenfinch, Siskin, Chaffinch and Linnet Flock, with about 10 of the birds being Siskin, which whilst not unusual, their preferred food is not readily available in Sand Bay. I need to spend more time on these finches as there are Brambling in the area, but I never see them.

And that wasn't the end of the story. Having driven to Bristol and whilst sitting in the queue to cross the Clifton Suspension Bridge, I saw a pigeon out of the corner of my eye flying at great speed, followed closely behind by one of the Gorge's Peregrines in classic "anchor" silhouette. It may have been a very brief view, but made my day.

Chew Valley Lake 13th December

Today's Quiz : Spot the birdie - - Common Gull amongst Black Headed on jetty

Driving up from Dorset to Bristol this morning, I left in heavy frost, arrived in frost, and in the middle, it was frost free. Very strange. Anyway only time for a 10 minute quick scan on the way in as I passed Herriott's Pool, which was partially frozen; 50+ Black Backed Gull, 1 Common Gull, hogging the lifebouy, (see photo), 3 male, 1 female Teal, 4 Pochard, 2 Coot, 3 Lapwing, 1 Carrion Crow, female Blackbird, Grey Heron, Pied Wagtail, and usual Tufties, Gr Crested Grebes and Pochard across the way on the lake.

Other birds of note, a Raven flew over the car at Castle Cary, Somerset, and a Green Woodpecker flew across the car in Leigh Woods Bristol.