Christmas walk with the boys!

Monday 25th December 2023.

A grey, breezy walk around my local patch with the dogs.

Birding on Christmas day. OK, that's not quite true but I still had to take the dogs out for their walk and so a stroll around Highland Road Cemetery had to be done. The weather was pretty grim, with overcast grey skies and a  breezy westerly, but thankfully, no rain as Buddy, Ted and I happily made our way around our usual route around my local patch.

It may be small and common, but all flowers, including this Daisy, close up are beautiful.

I counted up to 15 species on my walk round today that included a close female Sparrowhawk circling over my head and a nice flock of 17 Goldfinches also flying over. Believe it or not, I did not take my camera with me this time and relied on my mobile phone camera instead, so no quality bird photos today.  Three species of Gull were also seen and some friendly dog-walkers to briefly have a chat with rounded off this short walk today.

Carrion Crows perched up in the bare branches of this tree. Boring photo perhaps, but a typical wintry photo.

Birds seen and heard on this Christmas day included the following:

• Herring Gull
• Black-headed Gull
• Great Black-backed Gull (juvenile)
• Carrion Crow
• Magpie
• Greenfinch
• Goldfinch (flock of 17)
• Blue Tit
• Wren
• Starling
• Blackbird
• Feral Pigeon
• Wood Pigeon
• Collared Dove
• Sparrowhawk (female)

I hope you are all having a great Christmas guys, take care and thanks for reading my blog.

And now for some quality birds. Emma and Matt Parkes went east to Hailsham to see the Waxwings there. Despite the dull weather, these birds are always stunning to see. I hope we get some soon in Hampshire.