Chimney Meadows nature reserve

After yesterdays sunshine, today turned out to be overcast with dizzle and wind.
Not the best day to visit Chimney Meadows, a nature reserve in Oxfordshire.

 

 Our planned journey was blocked due to a flooded road, but we found another way through.

Once parked up it was quite a long trek through very flooded fields to the two bird hides. On the way we spotted a kestrel and the hedgerows were full of birds such as long tail tits, wrens, redwings, blue and great tits.

There were also lots of Lords and Ladies coming through.

 The log book in the first hide suggested we might see water voles, hares, fox cubs, stoats and various birds, we actually saw a couple of deers and lots of gulls on the flooded land.

The second hide had a couple of bird feeders and bird boxes to encourage the birds closer.
The birds seemed to have a great system of sharing the feeder.
The black cap would fly  directly in from the back of the hedge and feed from the bottom hole. The blue and great tits would sit on nearby branches and take it in turns, while the robins and chaffinches would hop around underneath.

This would all stop for a few minutes when the squirrel took it's turn. The birds would sit and wait while the squirrel ate and when it left the birds would start feeding again.

It was really funny to see the squirrel hanging upside down using just it's hind paws.