British Birding: Birds on a Picnic table
This afternoon I went for a stroll along the Darent valley at Lullingstone hoping to find Lesser Spotted Woodpecker which I have seen there before in winter. No luck with that species and very little else was to be found on an extremely quiet and cold day.
Along the valley and in the woodland higher up I saw very little other than Robins and Blackbirds. A few Blue Tits here and there, a Mistle Thrush, a Chaffinch or two and a party of just 3 Long-tailed Tits were about the best I could manage although the lake next to Lullingstone Castle held 4 Little Grebes, 12+ Coot, 13 Pochard, 3 Gadwall, 6 Mallard, 1 Mute Swan, 2 Black-headed Gulls and around 15 Tufted Ducks as well as a few Moorhens.
The woodland around the golf course held almost nothing although the clear weather gave some nice views up and down the valley. The only birds in the woods were more Robins and Blackbirds, a few Woodpigeons and a Ring-necked Parakeet. However, back at the visitor centre someone had scattered wild bird food on a picnic table and a group of birds were making the most of this. The species feeding here included 3 Blue Tits, 2 GreatTits, 3 Dunnocks, a Wren, 1 Robin, 2 Collared Doves, 6 Chaffinches and 2 Nuthatches. Most of the species were rather timidly feeding whilst the 2 Nuthatches were the dominant birds, quickly chasing off other birds including a female Blackbird.
So dominant and bold were the nuthatches that I managed to get some reasonable photos, although I struggled for light through the telescope.
The 20 minutes I spent watching the birds on the picnic table saved what had been a quite disappointing walk up to that point, but Nuthatch is always a nice bird to see.
