Marsh Tit

It was beautifully sunny this morning, so I headed off for a walk round Old Sulehay Forest. Most of the leaves have dropped now, but there were still some good displays of autumn colour on the oaks and field maples.

The bare branches enable much better views of the woodland birds. One corner of the wood was occupied by a mixed flock of foraging birds, including many goldcrests (almost impossible to photograph but lovely to watch), several nuthatches, a tree creeper, a great spotted-woodpecker, blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits and this marsh tit. I love the way it's holding the berry with its feet while it uses its beak to extract the seeds. Very dexterous!

A bit further on I watched a mixed flock of thrushes move through the wood, predominantly redwings, with a scatter of blackbirds and fieldfares too. And in the more open part of the adjacent quarry, bullfinches were flitting through the tree tops, calling to each other in soft, piping tones. It all felt quite wintry!