Garden Hawfinch & other Weekend Birds

Saturday 31st January - Sunday 1st February 2009
The star bird of the weekend, and indeed, the year so far was a Hawfinch in trees at the rear of my garden, in Goss Wood Corner, Quedgeley. It didn't stop long, but hopefully will be back. That was at 8.30am, and I had already got excited about three Lesser Redpolls coming to my black Sunflower seed feeder. There seemed to be a sudden influx of finches today, maybe brought in by the cold SE winds, with a Bullfinch, nine Goldfinches, nine Greenfinches and nine Chaffinches also present, plus 3-4 Great Tits and at least two Blue Tits. I made a detour on one of my taxi runs later this morning to Wainlodes, where four Whooper Swans were on Leigh Meadows.


Photos above of Lesser Redpolls. The bird in the second photo has a metal ring on its left leg, here is another photo of the same bird below.

Yesterday morning, the male Black Redstart was at Sharpness Docks, and at Slimbridge WWT, the highlights included a first-winter Glaucous Gull and six Bean Geese on The Dumbles, and a Spotted Redshank on the Tack Piece.

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