Woodland birdwatching

Yesterday's Thursday morning birdwatching session in my Ecology module was based in the woodland areas of the Reading Uni Whiteknights Campus for my group. Sunny weather greeted us at about 11:00 when we headed out which made the morning even better. 

The birdwatching session lasted for an hour and the first half an hour or so was spent in the Harris Garden, which is an incredibly impressive large and well kept garden near the woodland area of the campus, which I hadn't even seen until yesterday. I'll certainly be heading back there in the future. According to the university website, "The current garden occupies about 12 acres (5 ha.). It is now run by the Grounds Department". You can read more about the garden here.

I took a few photos on the way as well. All photos in this post were taken with my phone camera and left unedited. I did have my digital compact camera with me as well but decided to leave it in my bag, as my hands were already full with my phone and binoculars. Anyway, here's a picture from the path that leads from the entrance. Pictures as usual from a camera phone aren't great but hope you can get an idea of what the place looked like. It seems like several millennia since I had my SLR to take photos (exxagerating just a tad), but should have it back next weekend.

 The gardens are a mixture of open grassland areas with dispersed trees, flower borders, and woodland areas around the edges. The gardens were full of bird life even from the moment we walked in. Perhaps the most obvious activity were the singing great tits, which were probably the most abundant bird that could be seen when wandering around. I'm so used to the Blue Tits outnumbering the Great Tits so much at home, that seeing so many of the latter was unusual.

The photo below shows the large pond which can be found in the gardens. It's around this area which a small group of bird feeders can be found. A fairly constant stream of Blue, Great and Coal Tits could be seen coming in to feed.

Other birds I spotted along the way included Great Spotted Woodpecker and Song Thrush. I've seen woodpeckers in and around the woodland area of campus almost every time I've been so they must be quite common. The whole time I was walking through the gardens, I was keeping my eyes open for the Firecrest which is apparently still on campus, but I had no luck on that front.

After a good look around the gardens, I wandered back down the path on the way to the woodland just next to the gardens. As I passed the bird feeders again, I saw a Nuthatch feeding (albeit from a distance)- one of the birds I was hoping to see throughout the course of the morning.

Once into the woodland, it's clear why Reading University is known to have one of the greenest university campus' in the country. It really is a great habitat for wildlife, particularly birds.

I was constantly looking out for any movement in the trees that could be the Firecrest, but  still with no luck. It was great to see a flock of Long-tailed Tits though, that are always so fascinating to watch, and are generally much happier to get closer to you than other small birds.

Its only now that I realise just how many pictures I took in an hour yesterday- sorry about that! Towards the end of the session, a couple more species were spotted. The first, a Wren was seen pretty close singing at the top of its voice- always a lovely sound to hear. And, just before I was about to head back, I spotted a small brown bird moving up the trunk of the tree nearby to where I saw the Wren- it was the unmistakeable movement of a Treecreeper. They are such an unusual bird in so many ways, but fascinating to watch. Great to see birds like this so close to where I'm living. 

So that was it for the morning birdwatching session. But that wasn't it for the day. My afternoon module on a Thursday involves doing a practical field course in the local area. This week was a trip to Burnham Beeches- somewhere I've been to 4 or 5 times when I was younger but hadn't been to for years. As the name suggests, most of the site is covered by beech woodland which has defined the site. You can read more about it here. The trip involved a tour of the site from someone that has worked there for many years. She explained how the woodland is managed, ownership of the site, plant diversity, and future plans for the woodland. This trip gave me an opporunity to add a few more bird species to my list. These included Sparrowhawk, Green Woodpecker and Jay. 

By the end of the day, I had seen pretty much every species you'd expect to see on in the woodland. Didn't see any finches, which is surprising (you'd think I may have at least seen a Chaffinch), but that's just how it is I guess. There were a couple of duck species I saw on campus at various points in the day which I have added as well. I saw a total of 24 species, which are listed below, roughly in the order I saw them:

• Blue Tit
• Great Tit
• Robin
• Magpie
• Common Gull
• Woodpigeon
• Carrion Crow
• Great Spotted Woodpecker
• Blackbird
• Song Thrush
• Nuthatch
• Coal Tit
• Long-tailed Tit
• Wren
• Treecreeper
• Red Kite
• Mandarin
• Canada Goose
• Moorhen
• Coot
• Sparrowhawk
• Mallard
• Jay
• Green Woodpecker

So all in all, a very good day of woodland bird watching. Personally, woodland areas are often my favourite places to watch birds. Sometimes, instead of sitting in a hide at a nature reserve, its nice to have a wander around to see if you can find stuff yourself, rather than the birds coming to you. 

I realise how much I'm rambling on here so I'll leave today's post at that. Will try and condense my next post a bit more so it's not so long. Anyway, until next time I hope you have a great weekend :)