It was a disappointing turnout, in terms of humans, for the 2018 RSPB winter bird count but at least the birds didn’t let us down. Bird enthusiast Guy Haslam from the Friends of Green Dale was there to assist with the identifying of birds, which is a great help when often you can only hear them high up in the trees.
The count for DKH Open Space was as follows in the space of an hour:
- 2 wrens
- 4 blackbirds
- 1 carrion crow
- 2 robins
- 3 great tits
- 2 magpies
- 1 parakeet
- 1 blue tit
- 2 wood pigeons
- 2 goldfinches
- 2 mistle thrush
- 1 redwing (a first!)
- 1 woodpecker
We thought initially that the thrush were song thrush but on further reading up it’s more likely they were mistle thrush as they were huge and when spotted earlier in the week they had very white underwings.
The redwing was a first for DKH Open Space and a treat to see. A lovely looking bird and again a member of the thrush family. It’s much smaller than the mistle thrush with a flash of red under the wing (no surprises there!). It was up in the line of trees that border the Sainsburys car park. It’s rather rare and is red listed, meaning it has the highest conservation status. Although 8.6 million birds overwinter in the UK, there are only 13 breeding pairs here. Let’s hope our redwing comes back with a pal!
As usual the woodpecker provided a good amount of background drilling noise as we walked about.
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