LONG TIME NO POST!

Forgive me bloggers because I have not blogged it's been two months since my last post but - nowt much has happened to be honest. Over the last two months its just rained and bloody rained on top of that not much been happening at my feeders I think it's because of the mild weather. Also work commitments and general work around the house and the dark winter days has kept me from getting out with the camera. Birds that I had plenty of last year have not been near the place this year, birds like the Jay for instance not seen hardly any since the autumn just the odd fly by bird but this time last year I was getting up to 6 individual birds in at the same time. The amount of bird food I've wasted where its gone mouldy etc is a disappointment so I've cut down quite a bit on how much I put out. I have had some in mostly finches with green and gold being the dominant species with a few mostly male chaffinch no brambling at all this year which is a huge disappointment, had some reed bunting the odd blackbird dunnock wren robin and the odd G S Woodpecker. So as you can see although it's been good to have some birds in there's not that much to get excited about.

where have you and your  friends gone mate? Jay from last year.

greenfinch these seem to be doing well up here

reed bunting

chaffinch

goldfinch

Stephen Carter paid me a visit yesterday we went and checked a few boxes and to see if any of last years breeding birds were back on territory but nothing about really though there was plenty of singing and calling but his target species like Stonechat, Meadow pipits, and Skylark were absent. He also gave me the stats from last years nest box breeding successes and failures with most birds having decent years. I will try to summarise it all at a later date. We also managed to flush 3 Snipe from a wet area above my house he'd love to have them breeding here and you never know the habitat is good for them so we'll just have to wait and see.

wren

G S Woodpecker

The buzzards have been pretty active I do see them quite regularly but never can get close enough to them for a decent image.

distant buzzard

Also had this red kite fly straight over the house, again not a very good pic but you can see what it is.

red kite

Lets hope the bird count increases up the farm in the coming weeks and I'm hoping to go to some different locations after studying my birdwatching walks in Gwent publication and hopefully then have something to blog about.