I'm lucky I work in a place which has many areas of mature woodland, scrubland, streams, a couple of small ponds and one big concrete lake. Perfect for lunchtime walks.
Niall had sent me a text to say that friends of his had possibly seen a Brambling in the shrubs outside the entrance to the library. I've been checking the last few days, but didn't see any.
Yesterday I saw a Robin and 2 coaltits and today I saw this amazing male Bullfinch, seemingly oblivious to the milling students around him.
Quite unusual for such a shy bird to be so visible and subdued in such a busy area - but look how buffed up he is to increase his insulation, so maybe less subdued and more fkn freezing!
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| Male Bullfinch in shrubs outside the entrance to UCD library- with 100's of students milling around |
Down by the main lake.
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| BH Gulls, Mallards, Mute Swans. No tufties - UCD lake |
There are woods, a stream and 2 small ponds behind the Vets bldg, I saw a Wren down at the bigger pond, in the woods I saw a male Siskin again, 6 Goldfinch flitting around, 5 Long tailed tits moving from tree to tree, 3 Robins, 4 coaltits, 4 blue tits - all busy and a poss flock of about 20 Linnets in trees up near the old stone bridge - which is near the scrubland where I saw a flock of 30 yesterday.
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| Rugby pitches, the tree to the right of the water tower had 5 Song Thrushes yesterday |
At the rugby pitches scrubland (where I saw Linnets and Greenfinches yesterday) I just saw another Wren and Robin and Magpies.
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| Saw 3 of these fellas (the female robins will have flown to spain for their holliers in this weather - seriously) |
Didn't have as much time today, so grabbed a soup and headed back to work for the afternoon.
Leaving work there were about 200 Rooks?hoodies?jackdaws (couldn't see clearly through the snow on the car windows) on the football pitches. It's become a common sight to see 100ish gulls on the pitches in the morning and 200ish crows on the pitches when I'm leaving work.
