Walk in the Snow

The snow continued overnight. I measured the snow in the back garden and it was 12 cm deep.

After working thye first part of the morniong (I would have liked to have gone outstraight away) I went for a walk around the village.

The road outside our house. Portslade Old village is a beautiful place, made all the more beautiful by the blanket of snow. There were quite a few birds around, espcially blue and great tits.

Great tits

I carried on walking to Easthill Park which had also be transformed by the snow.

I watched several grey squirrels chasing each other in the snow, scampering up trees and along branches.

As they ran across branches they scattered snow.

Squirrel drey

As I came out of the park I noticed a great spotted woodpecker fly into the park from across the road. I went back in and noticed there was actuially two great spotted woodpeckers.

The woodpeckers moved up the branches, stopping occasionally to peck at the bark. After a few minutes they flew off further into the park and dissapeared into the top of an evergreen.

Redwing and grey squirrel

Our daughter only had a half day at school so I went to meet her at 12.30pm. It was a sunny day (the mornings and evenings are still quite dark and so the birds are usually waking up or getting ready to roost). As I approached the field of the animal sanctuary a big flock of thrush-like birds flew off to the west and disappeared into the trees. As I carried on along the road I saw another flock underneath the trees in Easthill Park feeding in the grass with some blackbirds. This time I got a closer look.

They were Redwing (as I had suspected of the earlier flock). There appeared to be about 12, but it was hard to see as they blended in really well with the leaf litter. Redwing are a winter migrant arriving October to November and leave again about March and April. Most of our winter redwing come from Siberia. Flocks of redwing roam across the UK's countryside, feeding in fields and hedgerows, occasionally visiting large gardens and more frequently observed in parks.

Redwing feed mainly on invertebrates and also berries and windfall fruit. It has been estimated that around 685,000 Redwing visit the UK in the winter months.They occasionally mix with flocks of fieldfare, another winter migrant.

On the way back home we saw this grey squirrel. From a distance we saw it leaping about in the branches. Then a roudy group of people came by and it scampered onto the trunk and pushed itself flat so that it blended with the bark.