Local patch

Lostock Park 

It had been a frosty night which probably explains the denudation of the bird feeders by lunchtime. The spadgers had been out in force, accompanied by blue tits and great tits and a cameo appearance by a goldfinch.

The cold ground probably accounts for a lack of gulls on the school playing field, just half a dozen black-headed gulls, five herring gulls and a common gull.

A short wander round the local patch in the pouring rain didn't seem promising but delivered much. You'd think picking out the runners and riders in a mixed tit flock moving through an avenue of mostly-bare Lombardy poplars would be a doddle but there were enough leaves left to provide smatterings of cover and enough rain knocking them off their perches to be distracting. I nearly missed the treecreeper feeding in the treetops with the long-tailed tits.

A charm of goldfinches divided its time flitting between the Pyracantha bushes by the old freight line and the hawthorn bushes in the United Utilities field. It's been a while since I've seen that many here.

• Black-headed gull 1 overhead
• Blackbird 5
• Blue tit 6
• Dunnock 1
• Pigeon 1
• Goldfinch 28
• Great tit 3
• Herring gull 1 overhead
• Lesser black-back 4 overhead
• Long-tailed tit 8
• Magpie 6
• Robin 1
• Starling 5
• Treecreeper 1
• Woodpigeon 1
• Wren 1