Local patch

Barton Clough

Another windy day with quickly alternating sunshine and showers and more business as usual in the garden. The coal tits reappeared yesterday and turned up again today, it's been the pair of blue tits' turn to go missing for a bit. I noticed the great tits investigating one of the nest boxes again, fingers crossed for this year.

• Blue Tit 1
• Carrion Crow 1
• Coal Tit 2
• Collared Dove 3
• Great Tit 1
• House Sparrow 11
• Jackdaw 1
• Long-tailed Tit 2
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Starling 2
• Woodpigeon 2

Over on the school playing field the wind had brought in a fair collection of gulls: 36 black-headed, three common, an adult lesser black-back and a second-Winter herring gull. Yesterday there was only a dozen black-headed gulls but more of the others: five common gulls, a pair of lesser black-backs and six herring gulls (three adults, a third-Winter and two first-Winter birds).

There wasn't a lot to commend the weather for walking so I dragged myself out for a stroll round the local patch. The wind kept most of the small birds under cover though there was plenty of noise from the great tits and a good bit of distant twittering from goldfinches. A pair of greenfinches feeding on bramble pips next to the old railway track was a nice find, as were the flock of twenty-five redwings feeding on the primary school's playing field in the company of a pair of mistle thrushes.

• Blackbird 6
• Blue Tit 4
• Carrion Crow 3
• Feral Pigeon 21 overhead
• Goldfinch 6
• Great Tit 7
• Greenfinch 2
• Herring Gull 2 overhead
• House Sparrow 12
• Lesser Black-backed Gull 1 overhead
• Magpie 14
• Robin 7
• Starling 7
• Woodpigeon 7
• Wren 1