If you go down to the woods today....

... you will find a carpet of Snowdrops, well you will at Putnoe Wood in Mowsbury Park, Bedford.

Snowdrops

Snowdrops by fallen tree

The Snowdrops can be found along the west side of the wood. Get down there soon and enjoy the show while it lasts.

On Sunday it was time for the monthly bird survey in the wood and a break in the weather tempted a few birds out. This Nuthatch surprised me by flying into the tree I was standing next to. It was just a few feet above me so I grabbed my camera and started shooting. These two photographs were the best of the bunch!

Nuthatch

Nuthatch

There were at least 3 "singing" Stock Doves in the wood and I managed this shot of one high up in the canopy, I love the iridescent green patch on the neck:

Stock Dove

Another surprise was a Moorhen calling from within the wood. They are always around the ponds on the golf course but I haven't had one in the wood before. A little less surprising when you see the ponds in the wood following all of the rain we have had recently. 

A Buzzard was a little less surprising, although a new species for the site since I started surveying, they are regularly in the area and eventually I was bound to catch up with one in the wood.

Here are the counts for the day:

Blackbird 7

Blue Tit 22

Buzzard 1

Carrion Crow 9

Chaffinch 6

Coal Tit 1

Dunnock 1

Goldfinch 7

Great Spotted Woodpecker 3

Great Tit 25

Green Woodpecker 2

Jackdaw 20

Magpie 3

Moorhen 1

Nuthatch 1

Redwing 20

Robin 8

Song Thrush 6

Stock Dove 3

Treecreeper 3

Woodpigeon 16

Wren 1

What's happening on my local patch?

What a week it has been on my local patch. At the beginning of the week it seemed like spring had finally sprung, mornings were warm and sunny and the wildlife responded. The Fox cubs were playing on the old vicarage lawn:

He's behind you. A cub watches me while his sibling pounces on him.

Fox cub enjoying the morning sunshine.

The birds were singing strongly, including this Stock Dove, note the gorgeous iridescent green neck patch:

Stock Dove singing.

A Sedge Warbler in the Hawthorn blossom:

Sedge Warbler singing.

The last couple of days have reverted to overcast and cool mornings with the cloud clearing during the day. I came across a family party of Long-tailed Tits moving through the trees up past Church End this morning. The youngsters are really cute and their parents are working hard to keep them fed. You can't miss them, they are so noisy, continually calling to each other.

Juvenile Long-tailed Tit.

Adult Long-tailed Tit with food for the young.

I tweeted about this Common Whitethroat a week or so ago. It's song is a strange variation to the norm. Rather than the normal scratchy phrases it has pure phrases, very like a Blackcap but it retains the short, clipped phrases of the Whitethroat. It has Blackcaps stationed either side of it and when it starts to sing it often seems to set them off until they realise it sounds a bit different.  I've never heard this variation before so I recorded it on my iPod, and this morning I finally managed to get a picture of the bird in question, it has been really mobile and stays tucked away in the cover except for the occasional song flight, when it does revert to a more normal song:

Common Whitethroat

Here is the normal Common Whitethroat song for comparison: