The strip of woodland where the small birds like to forage
It was a game of two halves, birding at Calderstones Park last weekend: the weather on the Saturday was awful – freezing cold, very dull – whilst on the Sunday it had improved, but the birds were out in force both days, trying to keep themselves well fed against the cold. I was looking in particular for siskin, which have been thin on the ground (or alder, one of their favourite trees) here so far this winter.
The path through the small patch of woodland at the Allerton Road end of the park was a frozen boggy mess on the Saturday, which made walking along it easier. By the Sunday, it had unfrozen just enough to be a nuisance, and wide enough in some places that it couldn’t be avoided. The sky was overcast, my fingers were cold and clumsy inside huge, lined gloves, and my eyes fogged up my binoculars within seconds. Birdwatching – a great hobby! Still, it was good to be outside, especially on the Saturday, when the rock-hard ground made allotmenteering nigh-on impossible.
I’m not usually one for standing still for too long, especially in the cold, but I know that if you do find a good feeding spot – one with trees with plenty of seeds and nuts or berries – then you need to hang around and the birds will soon resume their feeding. I tend to listen for their calls first, finding them difficult to see even on bare trees, especially in dull, overcast conditions.
Eurasian siskin – male – image by Zeynel Cebeci, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Standing on the path that runs parallel to Allerton Road surrounded by alder, birch, oak and other species, I was delighted to count 20 species just in that one place, over the course of about 20 minutes. There were at least two goldcrest, two siskin and a nuthatch in a mixed flock of tits – blue, great and long-tailed. The ‘tseeps’ of redwing heralded the arrival of a small flock, and two great-spotted woodpeckers chased each other from tree top to tree top.
Eurasian siskin – female – image by Sławek Staszczuk
Content with these sightings, I left the birds to their foraging, and headed for home, to thaw out.