A trip to Wendover woods occupied me yesterday. I went in the afternoon, and unfortunately, the place was quite busy, already reducing my chances of seeing some wildlife. It was busy, mostly because of picknickers, but as soon as we had walked a short distance from the car park and picnic benches, it was a lot quieter on the paths. The woods are great for birdwatching, and renowned for being home of a very special and rare bird: the Firecrest. However, I later found out that there were only 10 breeding pairs of Firecrests in the entire forest.
We arrived in the early afternoon, and walked on the nearly 3 mile-long "Firecrest Trail". According to the leaflet about the place, the tiny birds are heard more often than seen. They make a very high-pitched song. Unbelievably, we heard a song matching the description of that in the leaflet, but we later found out that it belonged to another very small bird, the Coal Tit. From a distance, I have to say that I thought that it was a Firecrest. With a closer look through the binoculas, I saw not just one Coal Tit, but at least 10 of them. Coal Tits are known to prefer conifer trees, and these woods were mostly conifers, as you can see in the photo above. Coal Tits are beautiful birds, but they are quite common, so it was no real surprise to see them. Firecrests are very rare where we live, so it would have been great to see one. Throughout the walk, we ended up seeing hundreds of them, along with a suspected Sparrowhawk, and some Long-tailed Tits. But no Firecrests. It was difficult to take a picture of the Coal Tits, because they were quite high up in the trees, and more timid than most that I see in our garden.
Below are some photos and illustrations of Coal Tits and Firecrests from the RSPB website. Shame they are not from my camera! Firecrests look very similar to Goldcrests, which sometimes causes some confusion.
Top image taken by me at Wendover Woods, and all others are from the RSPB website.
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