Flora Field and Sightings Board

Ian and I flushed 4 snipe in  Flora Field – near the northern boundary.

Board:

Feeding tables: chaffinch 30, reed bunting 5, blue tit  2, great tit 1, dunnock 2, blackbird 4,

Drumlins: c.100 redwing and fieldfare

Overflying : c 150 pink foot

Admiralty Wood: greater spotted woodpecker

Hedgerow: song thrush

Remains of the fallen horse chestnut

The Wednesday volunteers joined, by Andy Lee worked on the fallen tree in Pony Wood on Wednesday. The trunk and larger branches were sawn up and left in situ, the smaller branches were taken into the wood to make a hedge of brash: although dead wood is good spread around a woodland to rot down naturally, too much can cover ground flora, encouraging perhaps brambles to grow over it to shade out lower plants.  It can also cause a problem for access for management in the future.  Stacking brash either in heaps or rows is beneficial to small mammals, birds, insects etc, but a row or hedge can create corridors through the wood to connect to outside boundaries etc.  Eventually they compost down with mosses, lichens and fungi to increase nutrients to the woodland floor.

 

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Bird sightings on the board

Feeding Station

chaffinch 20+, blackbird 4,  robin 4,  great tit 2, blue tit 2,  dunnnock 2,  reed bunting 12, wood pigeon 4,  pheasant 1,

Pony Wood

jay 1, redwing 6, mistle thrush 1, wren 1 goldfinch 6,

 

Overflying

pinkfoot  40, greylag 15

 

Linnets

We  have had an answer from Jon Carter about the loss of linnets this year. He said that they did a circuit of the maize fields on Aldcliffe Marsh and Fairfield. The maize has bee replaced by grass so the linnets are no longer interested

Sightings Board Dec 15th

Feeding Station:

Chaffinch 33, stock dove, 9, reed bunting 4, robin, 3 blackbird 7, greenfinch1, goldfinch 1

Pony Wood:

Fieldfare 5, goldcrest 2

Also – twite and reed bunting recorded later  – location not given

Very cold and ground remains frozen