Another mild weekend, and the first daffodils are out along the road into the village.
Yesterday the Green Sandpiper, four Teal, a Heron and a couple of Moorhens were on the Decoy Pond and stream. The Long Pond had attracted a Cormorant, another couple of Moorhens and a couple of dozen Black-headed Gulls.
The woodland between the Long Pond and the Dock was alive with small things - Long-tailed, Blue and Great Tits, Goldcrests and a party of four Greenfinches. (Snatches of what may be Firecrest continue to stop me in my tracks from time to time, but I haven’t had a definite record for over two weeks.)
The trees elsewhere in the Park had an array of birds – noisy Jays and Nuthatches, a dozen Fieldfares and a handful of Redwings, both Song and Mistle Thrushes in song (daily features at the moment), Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers, and a charm of around a dozen Goldfinches – almost always around the crown of a big horse chestnut.
And the highlight of a trip to Abbot’s Wood near Hailsham this afternoon was a Stoat carrying prey and making a lot of noise as it skipped through the leaf litter. A Goldcrest and several Coal Tits were singing in the pines beside the car park, but there was no sign of the Redpolls or Bullfinches of last weekend.
Cormorant overlooking the Long Pond
