The intention of this post is to form the basis for one on the Baildon Village website about what can be seen in Robert’s Park at the moment. So I will be adding a few and taking a couple away for the Baildon Nature section of the village website. You can read/see the article here.
This lunch-time I went out with the intention of finding a Goldcrest. One of my flickr/twitter contacts has recently posted an excellent photo of a Goldcrest and I remembered seeing one in Robert’s Park during a previous winter. I also think I heard one, or more, a couple of days ago when I was photographing Mistle Thrushes and Song Thrushes – and they will be another post.
On the bridge it look s as though one of the welcome signs has been bent and knocked until it has come off one of its screws. (As usual you can click on the image to see a larger version on flickr.)
After snapping (i.e. taking a photo of) that I headed off to the far North West corner of the formal park and stood around quietly listening to the various birds. There were plenty of Wrens, Mistle Thrushes etc. but I soon started to pick out what I thought were Goldcrests. A few small birds flew between the trees taking the noise with them but after a while I manages to get these two shots. I took several others but because the bird simply does not stay still most were of out of focus leaves or branches.
The one below looks as though it is taken from directly under the bird but it is taken from not much higher than me and about 15 feet (5 m) away. The bird is pointing almost vertically down. A split second later it flew further into the tree.
One of the noisier birds in the park is the Magpie though occasionally the Canada Geese make a very loud noise.
I am not great at tree identification and the fatter the book I look in the harder it is to identify them but the Goldcrest was in a Larch tree (but then there are several varieties of Larch) and Mistle Thrushes were flting into the Larch, Holly and this Cypress (??) tree.
In one of the Holly (??) trees I managed to get a decent shot of a Wren.
In a nearby tree, and it is not until I come to post here that I realise that I was not paying attention, but I am going to say Larch again, a Robin was showing off rather brazenly.
On the way back from the far corner I noticed several small birds flying up into the trees as I walked along so by slowing down I managed to get close enough to get a decent view of Chaffinches on the ground.
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