Monday 7 April 2008

Use Your Imagination

I spent a pleasant time watching various parts of the Dark-eyed Junco at Dungeness. Luckily Lee Evans had it in his scope when I arrived and kindly let me look at it for a while to get my bearings. Thanks Lee. It was seen by the owner of South View Cottage, sitting up on a tree stump, early this morning. Fortunately he is birder and recognised what he was looking at. Unfortunately while I was there it mostly stayed hidden away in a Bay Laurel bush. If you have a good imagination you can see it sitting in the bush in the photo above, if not there are better shots here.
When I came away from Dungeness, I wandered across the marshes and stopped to look at a small colony of nest boxes, used by Tree Sparrows. I don't know how successful these have been for the last couple of years, previously I have seen lots of this beautiful sparrow around them. I don't know when they start to nest but you can imagine what a great sight they are at this site.

Back at St Margaret's, our snow all gone I was surprised to see how much snow was left on the other side of the Channel, just imagine more snow in France than there is here, it's a wonder they haven't all gone on strike!
At Waldershare all the snow had disappeared and I took a quick (sneaky) look at some of the larger trees in the park land. You can imagine what wonderful nesting tree these would make for some of our more sought after birds. Even with out nests I love the look of the parkland, a diminishing habitat, and one that can have a good mix of breeding birds.

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