Local patch

Long-tailed tit

Another cool day with bits and bobs of rain and business as usual out in the garden. I'd spent some time cutting back some of the shrubs and grubbing up brambles that had popped up over Winter yesterday, which led to some bad language from the spadgers and great tits. I left well alone today once I'd checked the feeders were topped up. Of course, yesterday when I wasn't armed with a camera the long-tailed tits came in close, stayed relatively still and struck photogenic poses, with a gold star for the one that hung from a branch with one leg while it held half a sunflower seed in the other. The one that visited today provided a few consolation shots.

• Blue Tit 2
• Carrion Crow 1
• Collared Dove 3
• Dunnock 1
• Feral Pigeon 1 overhead
• Goldfinch 3
• Great Tit 2
• House Sparrow 10
• Jackdaw 3
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 overhead
• Long-tailed tit 1
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Rook 2
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 4

It feels like gull season's winding down with just a handful of black-headed gulls and a second calendar year herring gull amongst the jackdaws and woodpigeons on the school playing field though the strong winds and rain promised later this week might bring in a few more.

Greenfinch, Lostock Park

Song thrush, Lostock Park

I decided that I didn't want a long walk today so just pottered about the local patch for an hour. There were plenty of paired-up songbirds and a few songsters, including robins, goldfinches and greenfinch. One of the carrion crows in the park was collecting sticks for its nest, which appears to be somewhere over the road amongst the warehouses. At the other end of the scale, a pair of long-tailed tits were collecting nesting materials from the seedheads in the rosebay willowherb patches. A couple of redwings lingered as a reminder of Winter while forty-odd starlings chattered in the tops of the poplars.

Long-tailed tit, Barton Clough

• Black-headed Gull 1 overhead
• Blackbird 9
• Blue Tit 6
• Carrion Crow 2
• Chaffinch 3
• Common Gull 4
• Dunnock 6
• Feral Pigeon 28 overhead
• Goldfinch 24
• Great Tit 8
• Greenfinch 2
• House Sparrow 5
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 3 overhead
• Long-tailed Tit 7
• Magpie 29
• Mistle Thrush 3
• Nuthatch 1
• Redwing 2
• Robin 11
• Song Thrush 1
• Starling 44
• Woodpigeon 20
• Wren 3