Walking in the sunshine

A beautiful day and a walk along Kingsdown Road,down to Bockhill Farm and then back past the Gun Site to home.

 St Margaret's first vineyard is looking neat.

 Lets hope that it will be a vintage year when it is ready to produce!

 A walk along Kingsdown Road towards the horse paddocks

 A wonderful day for a walk and great views across towards Kingsdown.

 Although I could hear Yellowhammers calling from the hedge I was unable to get a view of them, Towards the back of the paddock a Green wood pecker was picking away, probably feeding on ants.

He didn't like me pointing my camera pointing in his direction and he shot off to the hedge.

Further along looking over Bockhill farm.

In the distance looking towards the golf course and the sea.

This may look like a large pile of poo, which it is, but it is always worth investigating as often there are birds around feeding on the insects that are present. In this case I only found two Meadow Pipits, a Skylark and a Magpie, but it is still worth checking.

 A few Black-headed Gulls quartered the field, this is a first winter bird.

Looking across to the sea, the nearest trees on the right are the remnants of an old hedge, known by the Bockhill birders as Orchid Bottom, and on the right is the "Empty Wood".

Walking back from the farm Chaffinches were prominent, and easy to photo, while a couple of Goldcrests were elusive.

Noisy Great Tits, and blue Tits were gathering, probably ready to go to roost.

Looking back to the village , across the football field with our garden in the distance.

St Margaret'sChurch in the distance.

There's ants in the Lawn.

I have many faults, and one of them is hoarding rubbish. Sometimes it pays off. This old wall television "table" looked like it might have some use, and for about three years it has made a useful bird table, fixed to a large tree. It doesn't get used a lot, but I did notice, a year or so ago, that visiting Bramblings preferred to feed on it than on the ground. I put some seed on it and of course a Chaffinch tried it first. In the end I had four Bramblings feeding there.

It wasn't long before some of the flock Goldfinches found the seeds on the TV bird table, The flock is well over 100 now and as well as being very noisy they also get through a lot of seed.

I think this female Green Woodpecker must have found a good ants nest as it had it's head down most of the time I was watching it (about five minutes). As usual something, probably one of the clumsy Wood Pigeons landing with a thump, disturbed it and it flew to one of the trees.

A Visit from a Yaffle.

I always like to see a Green Woodpecker in the garden. I love their comic look as they hop around the grass looking for ants.

Looking out of the window I saw a Green Woodpecker quite a long way down the garden. I picked up the camera and took aquick shot through the glass.

I went to the garden door and gently opened it, and slowly managed to get a large enough gap to get my camera on the bird. I managed a series of pictures and only a large gust of wind that blew some leaves across made it fly up into the tree.