Bird box is up!

Thursday 3rd December 2020

The bird box went up on the farm today! It was a miserable morning but we put up about 10 boxes around Coates farm - they are for tree sparrows - I suspect we might actually get blue tots but lets check next year! On the way there and back our lecturer Ian helped us bird spotting. Lots of grey wagtails - I didnt know they existed. Fieldfares and redwings - all looked like thrushes to me - they are members of the thrush family however. We saw a stonechat - Ian was very excited about that one. I really need to get much better - I can spot really obvious birds but apart from that they blend into small/big or brown /black/other - not much use really! Its really important to be able to identify species to be able to have any input into wildlife conservation - work to do on that!

We also looked at some of the camera trap footage when we got back to the university. Unfortunately the group I was in got the camera trap footage from the campus - and even though the path was 20 M away and through the trees we got hundreds of shots of people walking past - 3 foxes, 3 squirrels and a muntjac deer. We could see the other groups with their herds of deer and interesting photos - just proves that positioning the camera in the right place is really important!!

On the way back to the cottage I saw a coal tit - so excited - a few months ago I didnt even know there was such a thing!