Thousands of Starlings

 This afternoon we went over to Otmoor with Ben from bensbirdsandbeastlybugs.blogspot.com  to have another go at watching the Starling murmurations. The weather was windy, cold and very overcast so we were not expecting too much.
Firstly small groups of about 20 - 50 Starlings flew over then the whole sky seemed to be covered in black dots.
I don't know how people begin to estimate how many there are, but some body had written 30,000 on the notice board.

Once the Starlings settled down, the reeds turned black with Starlings, the noise was overwhelming

Owners of the bird table

Inspired by the article in the BBC Wildlife Magazine - Understand Your Garden Birds, I spent some time in my garden.
It was obvious that the Robin was in charge today, it takes a particular dislike to the Dunnocks.
However the Blackbirds seem to do their own thing down the bottom of the garden.
The Blue tits and Great tits wait for the all clear, take what is in sight then retreat back to the hazel tree for safety.
The Crows sit on the pylon or the silver birch tree then swoop down, grab what they want, then fly off.
The Great Spotted Woodpecker is around the garden but will only come to the feeder in January to March when they can't find food elsewhere.
The Long Tailed Tits prefer to stay on the hedges but will come in ocassionaly late afternoon.
We have a wren but it doesn't feed from the bird feeders.
The wood pigeons who spend a lot of time in the garden during the spring and summer have joined the large flocks in the farmers fields and the fieldfares edge around the garden but are more interested in the hedgerow berries and the orchard.

Blue tit

Dunnock

Fieldfare

Bossy Robin

Great tot

Blue tit using claws to hold food

Fieldfares

On todays dog walk we saw a Kestrel, Redwings and a large group of Fieldfares. 

The weather was heavy rain and wind until it started to clear up 

The Kestrel was find it very difficult to hunt because of the rain.

These birds were all hunched up together, can anyone help identify them?

There is at least one female chaffinch but are they all chaffinches or could some be female Bramblings?

There are 16 on this one branch

The Fieldfares were moving from tree to tree in groups along with some Redwing. At the moment the whole sky seems to be full of a 'chack' and 'chuck' noises and they are very quickly stripping all the local hawthorn bushes of their berries and well as picking something, probably worms, off the fields.

Deer v milkman

I put my trail camera by our garden fence hoping to see the badgers. It was quite a surprise to see what the camera captured.

Ignore the date stamp, I keep forgetting it resets after I change the batteries.

Sunny afternoon at Otmoor

Otmoor was very busy this afternoon with people hoping to see the starlings.
There were lots of other things worth looking at as well as the starlings.
Our first stop was at the main hide where we spotted Stonechats, Herons, a Red kite and a young Swan.

As dusk and the tempearture dropped we headed to where the Starlings coud be seen.
The hide was very busy and the Starlings soon began to gather into a murmuration, unfortunately even though there were thousands and thousands of Starlings they didn't put on a great display but just sank quickly into the reeds.

This Kingfisher flew by.

Stonechat

Red kite

Jack snipe

Blue tits in the garden

Today I had the day off school because I was ill.
I sat in the in the kitchen wrapped up in a blanket with a hot chocolate taking photos of the Blue tits as they flew onto the feeders. 

I was trying to get a photo of a Blue tit in flight, but it's harder than it looks.

When the Blue tits are on the feeders they are very wary about preditors and always looking upwards. Nothing was around today except the Great tits who bullied the blue tits off the feeder.

These are my best.

First cold evening

This evening was the first time it has really felt cold.
There were large groups of fieldfares in the bushes and Long tailed tits making a lot of noise.
The Rooks were crossing the sky on their way home and the gulls were heading to the reservoir where thousands of them roost at night.
As the sun set it turned the whole sky orange and the mist began to appear.
Hiding in amongst the trees, were five Roe deer. Two of this years young as well as 3 older ones further back.

Fieldfare

 I couldn't resist taking loads of photos of the sun as it went down