07 Feb 2010 Cathkin

A murky cold morning. The temperature at 10 am was 4 degrees. The winds were light. The walk through the beech wood towards the dump produced 2 Treecreepers and a Bullfinch. It's good to see small birds such as the former surviving after all the freezing weather that there has been.

A large flock of Yellowhammers flew into the hedges that border the dump and I counted 93. There were a further 20 between the dump and the feeding area and further birds at the feeding area brought the total to c140. This is a significant increase on my previous estimate of 70 in Dec/Jan.

I could only find 2-3 Tree Sparrow at the feeding site and there were perhaps 20 House Sparrow and c15 Reed Buntings. There was also c5 Chaffinches.

C110 Pink Footed Geese flew over in a north easterly direction, a new species for me for the site.

Pink Footed Geese:

Stock Dove continue to be evident with C5 birds today. I flushed a single Snipe from the Windlaw Marsh which also held a Heron. More Skylark were around today with presumably breeding birds returning to the Braes.