Jim's Birding: Snow Bunting and Hawfinches

Snow Buntings and Hawfinches are bit of a strange mix but with a single Snow Bunting not too far away at Wilstone Reservoir (Herts) and Hawfinches still at Great Hampden, I decided to try and take both in during one session.

First stop was Wilstone Reservoir, parked the car, walked up the steps, walked 30 metres along the bank and there it was feeding on the concrete side of the reservoir. Amazingly close with the bird almost vertically below me for a time, at the base of the steep concrete sides to the reservoir. A steady stream of admirers stopped by to view or take photos. One some of mine I had to use the 300mm telephoto lens at less than full zoom to fit the bird in!

The bird was constantly moving around feeding on very small items. According to the discussion on Twitter, this individual originates from Iceland.

A short video of the Snow Bunting feeding actively beneath me.

Then onto Great Hampden where good numbers of Hawfinches had been present since 1st November. I approached the site from the Hampden Hall end. On walking past the church and Turret House I saw 3 Hawfinches land in some tall trees next to the house. I carried on across the path that cuts across the oilseed Rape field and spent about an hour and a half in that area. There were 25 approx seen to fly into the copse in the centre of the field. They arrived in small groups and flew out in one group, so I managed to count reasonably accurately. The birds were again feeding in the seeding Hornbeam in the South side of the copse. It is hard to get close to these birds and the light is not great as the tree is to the South of the footpath. However I did manage to get good scoped views of several birds that were feeding on the outer edges of some of the branches. I also managed to record photos of these. On walking back past the church there were several more Hawfinches moving around and at least one was feeding on Yew berries in an obvious berry laden tree. So I suspect that these were different to the birds to the ones in the copse. So the total count could well have been about 30.

The photos below were all taken at a distance and in fairly poor light, so not the greatest of quality!