Not One Of The Best

 A pedestrian sort of day in all senses as my walk to and around Weldon failed to produce any sightings of note. While the day ended with blue skies and sunshine it was somewhat drabber and grey during the morning with fairly persistent though thankfully light rain. While passing the woodland park yesterday I'd caught a glimpse of two hefty looking finches that had a Hawfinchy sort of vibe to them but they flew out of sight without me being able to confirm their identification. My hope was a visit today might produce further and more conclusive sightings, the fact that this post isn't called Happy Hawfinch Hunt or something similarly snappy should tell you how it went!

I'm in the habit of using phrases that include "nothing of note" or "little of interest" and it does a disservice to those species that I do manage to see. A total of 38 were found today ranging from Cormorant through to Goldcrest and also including my first Treecreeper of the year. Both sorts of winter thrush were seen and a decent number of Greenfinches too. It's strange that whenever I'm looking for Hawfinches I always seem to see more Greenfinches than I would normally, not complaining though as they're always a welcome sight.

Most interesting and entertaining watch of the day was the cob Mute Swan at the A43 pond taking offense at the presence of an invading Canada Goose on his prospective nursery. Puffing himself up he made a bee line for the unfortunate interloper creating an impressive bow wave as he set a course for interception. A flotilla of squabbling Mallard drakes were scattered in his wake while Gadwalls swam fearfully out of the way. The Canada Goose rather sensibly chose flight over fight and made a tactical withdrawal leaving Mr Swan to return to his mate and a spot of preening. On a different tack Wednesday is looking quite promising at the moment and an after work sortie looks possible, Id love to see some early butterflies. No pictures from today but here's some pictures from last February's visit to Spain, hopefully such journeys might become possible again sooner rather than later.

Images of Spain.