Visit to St. Nicholas Church and surrounding areas – 25th December 2020

Date: 25th December 2020

Time: from 9 a.m.

Weather: dry, sunny/cloudy, light wind, 0°C to 1°C

Last night’s weather forecast suggested that this morning would be sunny, cold and frosty so I had planned a Christmas Day visit to the site.

It was definitely very cold but there was no ground frost and unfortunately the early sunshine quickly gave way to grey cloud.

I accessed the site as usual via the track from Larkins Tyres which remains very wet and muddy and requires caution to negotiate!

With regard to birds, there were several highlights this morning.

After a significant increase in Redwing sightings on my last visit on 15th December 2020, I saw at least 25 this morning at various locations. As I was walking back home, I thought “I still haven’t seen any Fieldfares yet this winter”. As I waded back through the water and mud back to Larkins Tyres, I heard a few Redwings calling but also the distinctive “chuckling” sound of Fieldfares. Moments later, 5 Redwings and 2 Fieldfares flew out of a bush in the scrubland behind Larkins Tyres and flew off away from me.

I also heard and then saw a Goldcrest in the hedge bordering the church car park, heard 2 Great Spotted Woodpeckers distantly calling from 2 different locations and saw my first Lesser Black-backed Gull for many weeks flying over the church with c.10 Herring Gulls. In addition, Jays were very evident this morning and I saw 7 individual birds around the site.

With regard to mammals, I had a very brief sighting of a Red Fox in the wooded clearing from a where a short track leaves to my watchpoint over the field, scrubland and trees to the north of the site. I then walked the short distance to the watchpoint in the hope of seeing it again. Unfortunately this did not prove to be the case but I did see what was almost certainly a different Red Fox just a few minutes later very distantly at the very far end of the field.

After the good numbers of Grey Squirrels seen on my previous visits, I only saw 3 this morning, 2 along the track from Larkins Tyres and another in the trees from the watchpoint whilst waiting for Red Foxes to appear.

Santa was also still hanging around 😀

Species recorded during this visit were as follows (heard only records in italics):

Goldcrest
Blue Tit
Great Tit
Long-tailed Tit
Robin 
Dunnock
Fieldfare
Redwing
Blackbird
Starling
Goldfinch
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Jay
Magpie
Carrion Crow
Woodpigeon
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Herring Gull
 
Red Fox
Grey Squirrel
 
Santa 😀

Here are some photos from my visit:

Photo: Robin

Photo: Great Tit

Photo: distant and cropped view of a Grey Squirrel

Site totals to date:

Birds = 50
Mammals = 6
Butterflies = 21
Dragonflies and damselflies = 7
Reptiles = 1
Amphibians = 0

💚🦆 🦉🦋🐝🦊🦡🌼 🌳💚

Stay safe, stay well, stay strong, stay connected with nature