What have you seen

Yes thanks Wn, they are covered in short geometric spikes. The puffballs I’ve seen in the past have been smooth, yellowish in colour and were in meadows with cows in. I remember The River Cottage chef stuffing and baking one but it was much bigger.

Thanks, WN. I just wonder if it was the light that day that resulted in the colour, or maybe a foible of the phone camera. 

A first for me, well in these numbers! There must have been 50, possibly more, curlew today on the stubble field near us. Just a few hundred metres from the coast. Let’s hope there is a future for our lowland breeding populations of these birds. The upland populations aren’t fairing too well either and the bird remains on that Red List.

Quite a fascinating walk around the woodland of Chirk Castle as the substantial leaf fall allowed us to pick up various leaves and examine them in close detail, obviously in their autumn colours but handy nevertheless. We looked at the small difference, for example, between beech and hornbeam, not the easiest to distinguish simply from the bark or even the leaf.

The numerous variety of trees kept us interested all the way around.

Walking alongside the mere at Ellesmere today we saw a Swallow, and not a juveile either, quite close just hawking flies and taking a drink from the lake. Quite a surprise.

Fabulous spot, Nellie! Apparently the collective noun for crossbills is a ‘warp’ or a ‘crookedness’. I’ve only seen them in pairs. I’m going in search of Hawfinch this next few days, apparently there are quite a few around. I wonder what their CN is?

Thanks, RK. Just tipped off that Hawfinch are near us today. I’ve never seen one so hope to in our efforts this week. We are headed to Clumber Park site next week where several have also been spotted so a second chance there.
Strangely we still have bats around us with quite a lot of flying insects about. The leaves are falling but still lots on the trees here. I remember harsh frosts at this time in past years and even snow. We left one site on the last morning some years back concerned that we wouldn’t make it up the hill. Thankfully we did but things are not as they were. No frosts and no snow yet.

Just as a matter of interest Hawfinches like Hornbeams and seem to favour church yards, although the ones we've seen in the past were in neither.

Well, our "resident" Green Sandpiper is still at Burton Mere. I wondered whether it had damaged a wing but apparently not as we saw it flying today as well as getting a full on closer view.

We both saw a flying Bearded Tit for all of 3 seconds and shook our heads as they hardly have foothold here. Both of us quite convinced of what we saw though.Had a lot of trouble spotting the Green Wing Teal amongst about 500 Teals until someone kindly pointed it out. 10 seconds later a Marsh Harrier disturbed everything so we took that as a sign to make haste.

wintering Hornbeam

Don't get many of them around these days, WN!😁

That's what I thought, as I have the same problem with predictive text.

We used to stop at a site just north of Caussade when travelling down in Winter/early Spring and used to see up to 40 Cattle Egrets in the surrounding fields. Never saw one in the UK until a couple of years ago on our favourite little reserve at Burton on the Wirral. They now overwinter!

@Oneputt with regards to Cattle Egrets there is an interesting article about the hybridization of one with a Little Egret at Hodbarrow Nature Reserve in the current issue of BirdGuides website.

https://www.birdguides.com/articles/hybrid-little-western-cattle-egret-in-cumbria/?utm_campaign=1371116_Weekly%20News%20from%20BirdGuides%2025%2F11%2F2024&utm_medium=email&utm_source=dotdigital&dm_i=73DM,TDYK,ZVQOI,3ZKMI,1