Christine's walking & birds blog

Combe Woods

It was cold and windy this morning up on Walbury Hill. Despite a long walk there were few bird sightings. Ravens were everywhere, many standing in pairs in fields of stubble. 

I was looking at a great spotted woodpecker at the top of a dead tree along the Test Way when a smaller bird landed nearby. I think it was only my second spotted flycatcher of the year; and, as Greger pointed out, my first of the year in England since the other one was in Scotland.

Birds nearby were wren, blackbird, marsh tit and willow tit (both heard only), long-tailed tit, goldcrest, robin, dunnock, nuthatch, and a juvenile blackcap. As we climbed out of the woods onto the open downs we heard a chiffchaff, its call turning into half-hearted song and then back again to "hweet"; but otherwise birds were scarce apart from a handful of meadow pipits near the gibbet.