The last few weeks have been dominated by rain, strong winds and flooding. Most of our water meadows have been flooded and swans, ducks, little egrets, and herons have all been busy swimming and feeding in the middle of fields. The latter clearly after the small fish washed out onto the flood plain as Peter has mentioned.
In the garden, our resident female blackbird has been bathing in our pond on an almost daily basis, before preening every wing and tail feather with meticulous care. I found myself wondering how many feathers there are on a blackbird. My research has failed to find an accurate answer, but it is probably around 3,000. A fully grown swan has around 25,000!
Our golden plovers are still on Spring Hill, as are groups of fieldfare and redwing. The fieldfares are often heard before they are seen. Their very distinctive ‘chuckling’ is a lovely winter sound. The last few days have been bright and clear and one of the sightings of the month was a male nuthatch at the very top of a tree with the orange breast, blue grey wings and black eye stripe all glowing in the sunshine. The very early beginnings of a dawn chorus says that Spring is not far away.
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