Saturday 9 January 2010

Haughmond - in the woods....

The weather kept me tied to Shropshire yet again but at least most of the roads are fairly clear. I turned my attention to 'woodland' to see if there was an outside chance of Lesser pecker??!

Haughmond hill near Shrewsbury has quite a varied habitat - both mature deciduous woodland and coniferous plantation. There was no shortage of Redwings here (a local shortage of berries though?) foraging in the leaf litter.....






Song Thrush proving that you can use a shell to hide in - but escape is impossible!






I bumped into my first Nuthatch of the year - a very obliging and photogenic subject - I wont bore you with more than these ....












The main parking area can turn up Willow Tit but not today - several Marsh Tit only....







Next, it was off to Priorslee lake where there were just two Yellow legged Gulls of note! Mandarin on the Severn at Bridgnorth followed by a bitterly cold Chelmarsh roost! There was probably not far short of 10,000 Gulls around the icy perimeter (the dam half of the reservoir was still clear water) and with little time to do it justice - picked out three more YL Gulls on the ice plus, white head resplendant a looooooong way off, a fine adult Caspian Gull in open water!

I'll spare you the record shot.....