This weekend is the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Birdwatch and we joined forces with the Friends of Green Dale to do a spot of early morning twitching today. Armed with binoculars, pens, pencils and bird ID books, we headed out into DKH Open Space and Green Dale to record the species we saw from 9am – 10am.
It’s surprising how enjoyable bird watching can be. It’s reminiscent of the old I-Spy books and doing it with friends makes it even more fun.
We split up into two groups: one in DKH Open Space and one on Green Dale, as they are wildly different habitats and so you get different species in each.
The results for DKH Open Space are as follows. All of these were seen in trees or on the ground in the park:
- 3 wood pigeons
- 4 blackbirds
- 3 chaffinches
- 4 blue tits
- 6 long-tailed tits
- 2 coal tits
- 3 great tits
- 2 magpies
- 2 great spotted woodpeckers
- 17 crows
- 1 robin
- 4 ring-necked parakeets
- 3 song thrush
- 2 jays
- 2 wrens
These species were seen flying overhead:
- 7 black-headed gulls
- 2 geese (Canada?)
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The weather was warm for this time of year with occasional sunshine. The crows made a terrible racket, reminiscent of a Hitchcock horror. At one point there were 17 crows, 4 parakeets and 1 woodpecker in view all at the same time!
At the beginning of the bird count we were discussing that someone had seen a wild-looking rabbit on the edge of DKH Open Space. We expressed our disbelief when suddenly a large agouti rabbit with a flash of white on its tail shot across the park in the direction of the “wild area”. Too quick to get a photo but we are working on it. Could it be a pet rabbit that someone has let out? Or could it really be a wild rabbit that has made its way to the park via one of the green links nearby (Green Dale / railway line)? TBC…
