Our Local Patch

The wooded knoll is a refuge for the Greenfinches and Goldfinches that visit our feeders. Unfortunately this is also a place the local youths frequent with inevitable disturbance.

Wooded Knoll

The quarry and old farm fields hold some good birds including Bullfinch (which strayed onto our feeders in summer 2006) and Buzzard that often soar overhead. Jay are sometimes in the trees.

Clay Quarry

Old Farm Fields

Disused Railway Track

Our ‘patch’ is a mixture of established housing estates and some leftover industrial or farmed areas.  School fields provide large areas of short grass exploited by Gulls, Woodpigeons and Starlings, Magpies and Crows.
The gull family is represented by Black-headed, Lesser Black-backed and Herring.  On one afternoon in the winter of 2002 we had a Yellow-legged Gull.
Aerialphoto

The ‘Portway’  Standhills Rd  ‘High Acres’ ‘Crestwood Park’

School Fields

Open Spaces

School Buildings

“Fens Pool Nature Reserve”

The school field that we overlook has the occasional ‘odd’ bird such as a Heron.  We have also seen Mallard and Canada Geese amongst the morning gulls.

The message from all this is that no matter how built up the area, you can nearly always find bird-life of some sort - you only have to look!

Beyond the old railway track is a housing estate that is the home to a colony of House Martin.  They sometimes fly in our direction, but more common in the summer are Swift that fly low over our garden.