Took my little boy to the park today about 11.30am and noticed a Grey Heron fly over pretty low and the odd sight of a pair of Magpies carrying a number of twigs to a specific tree. There were plenty of Robins singing by the sound of it.
One thing that caught my eye was at least 1 bird in a tree maybe 2, midway up moving up and down the branches and aroud feeding on "things" at the end of the branch. They were larger than Nuthatches and Robins but smaller than Starling. I ddi think from the colouring they could have been jay but they were too small. They were of a similar colour and had shortish tail.
I did not have any binoculars but the birds were not ones as I had seen before. The underside looked exactly the colour a Hawfinch would be.
Just in case any one is interested in going I saw them as you walk up in from Manchester Road and walk up to where the childrens playground starts, in the trees on the right, adjacent to the church.
I was going to post earlier but had a very busy day. I will try pop down tomorrow.
I canot be certain they were Hawfinch as I did not get a very close look at them but there is nt much you could really mistake them with is there?
No sign of any birds in the trees yesterday morning. Magpies still carryig twigs to the same tree. Heard some Long-Tailed Tit, which were also present on Thursday.