Cassiobury Park - 23.12.09

An excellent day in the park started off with 4 Bullfinches near the toilet block and a Sparrowhawk in virtually the same place as yesterday.

I then bumped into a couple i'd met before who bird the park occasionally and they said they were looking for the Kingfisher and some Siskins but had missed both so far. Within 10 seconds of them carrying on their jourey 3 Siskins flew over their heads without them realising then the Kingfisher flew into view by the rustic bridge and started bashing a fish to death!

I then had a quick look at the cress beds next to the fishing lake and found 2 Canada Geese, 6 Teal and 60+ Black-Headed Gulls. Then on the walk back towards the car park a Fox jumped out of nowhere and scared me half to death followed by a Great-Spotted Woodpecker drumming on the very top branch of a tree.

Probably the best birds of the day flew West over the car park. I heard the call of Fieldfare and as I looked up 5 flew over but behind them were 3 Lapwing which without old records to hand I think are pretty rare for the park.

Finally it was noticable that Wrens had become more obvious with at least 12 birds dotted around the park, mainly by the unfrozen river edges and 2 Common Gulls made it onto the list.