Monday, November 09, 2009
Burnham Beeches
A brief visit this morning brought a brambling feeding on the ground with chaffinches and great tits. These two mighty oaks are where I saw my first ever lesser spotted woodpecker. It was a male and I watched it for ages. I don't linger under these trees now however; the right-hand one shows the scar of recent damage, when a branch and a section of the trunk sheered off.
The day had a sort of symmetry to it because returning in the late afternoon looking for redpolls, I got a glimpse of a lesser spotted woodpecker near Hardicanute's Moat. It was very high up and looked incredibly tiny. A nuthatch shouldered it away - and maybe it didn't like my bins either, because it flew off.I tried to relocate it but in the darkening woods of tall trees, many of them still with leaves on, it was an impossible task.
I stopped off at Littleworth Common on the way back, walking out into the clearing and waiting in the dusk for delectable items like owls and woodcocks. What I actually got was a barnacle goose, flying north in the company of an Egyptian goose! I recall that some years ago, a barnacle and greylag used to knock around together locally, often dropping in at Dorney Lake.
// posted by Christine @ 9:13 AM 
