Solo birding at Blashford

In an all too rare solo birding outing I visited Blashford Lakes near Ringwood to see what was going on with the winter visitors. The reserve has a decent range of landscapes so with a diligent couple of hours you could probably gather 30-40 species in one day. The large Pintail flock reported earlier in the week was nowhere to be seen on the lakes I visited but that still left Tufted, Pochard, Wigeon, Goldeneye, Coot, Mallard, Mute Swan, Moorhen, Little Grebe, Cormorant, Buzzard, Blackheaded Gull and a fox chancing his arm along the shore. Over in the woodlands there were good sightings of Greater Spotted Woodpecker, Chaffinch, Greenfinch, Dunnock, Longtailed tit, Blue tit, Great tit, Robin, Song Thrush, Blackbird and a Goldcrest.

Unexpected fox encounter

Additional nature updates:

New year's day, having watched the Poole Quay bath tub race we wandered along the shore and came across a freshly dead cuttlefish. Regrettably no photo was taken but you could clearly see the arms and tentacles and a purple mottled pattern on its back.

2nd January - found and identified a whelk egg-sac on the shore at Branksome Dene Chine. It's now in the back garden and looks like this one.

From WildaboutBritain.com

On the evening of 2nd it got better. Out in the garage, stood just inside the door and turned around to see an adult fox 2ft from me. It stood its ground, sniffed the air and only trotted off when I moved. It had a sniff around the flower beds and wandered off down the patio.

New year update

A new year and an update is in order after a particularly barren period borne of laziness rather than lack of action. The badgers have continued to come throughout the summer and into autumn. It's now about 8pm that there's a visit and usually it's just the one and it looks like it's Big Boy. We did have one night with three of them and one looked noticeably bigger than the other two so we assumed it was a male, female and a juvenile, but that's a guess. No more sign of the fox after those few sightings in late spring. Bird life in the back garden remains limited, most of the action happening out front with regular visits from the Jay, Starlings, Goldfinches and House Sparrows. The pond has been re-landscaped in an effort to eradicate the algae so we'll see what a clean pond does for wildlife.

Out for the new year's first wander and the first bird spotted for the 2015 list was a Turnstone at Poole Quay. Beyond that there were Blackheaded Gulls, Herring Gulls, Oystercatchers, Brent Goose and Pied Wagtail.

The new year's eve morning frost afforded the opportunity for frosted landscape photographs in Windsor.

Yes, I did get carried away.