At the Blashford lakes Young naturalists group at the weekend we made a dead hedge to shield the people walking past from disturbing the birds on Ivy lake.

These Scarlet Elf Cup were a nice splash of colour in amongst the rotting leaves and logs.

When we had finished we spent an hour doing the Big Garden Birdwatch from the woodland hide there, and saw many birds. The finches particularly were making a real noise in the trees above the woodland hide. I couldn’t believe how many there were there altogether. Our final tally (the most seen at any one time)  was: 17 siskin, 7 blue tit, 7 goldfinch, 7 dunnock, 5 greenfinch, 5 robin, 4 great tit, 4 lesser redpoll, 3 collared dove, 2 coal tit, 2 blackbird and 1 nuthatch, great spotted woodpecker, brambling, stock dove, jackdaw, wood pigeon, long tailed tit and sparrow hawk. For more info have a look at the Blashford Lakes blog.

 

We also saw lots of birds at the Ivy South hide.  There were cormorants in the tree and a great crested grebe which came pretty close to the hide. I also took this little video of a tufted duck.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b18C2ocIh3s?rel=0]