It was a fresh and cold start today, just 3C and an overnight frost. I had been out earlier in the morning with the dogs and was glad to be home for a cup of tea and toast.

I have been busy recently with jobs in the garden and house and frustratingly not been able to get out with the camera as frequently as I have in the past. So after breakfast I packed the camera gear and headed over to the reserve at Fairburn Ings for the morning. 

I called in to the visitors centre for a coffee and chat with the wardens before I headed around the corner to the ‘Pick up hide’. There was nobody else at the hide so I set the gear up and waited, looking in my travel log I noted that on my last visit to this reserve on the 8th August, the lake in front of the hide had completely dried up. This morning I was pleased to see the water level was back up to its normal level. 

It was just 10.00am as the sun started to come over the top of the coal tips on the left of the hide providing a little warmth on this cold morning, I was pleased I had my thick winter jacket and gloves on. I saw no activity at all on the lake. Looking around the feeders to the right of the hide a pair of Hen Pheasants were busily scavenging anything they could find under the empty feeders. I usually carry a packet of bird food (Sunflower hearts) in my camera bag for times like this when there is little food about so I left the hide and scattered some of my seed around the woodland floor and on a couple of fence posts, by the time I arrived back at the camera a pair of Great Tits were busily champing the seed on one of the fence posts whilst the pair of Hen Pheasants had tripled in number with six of them now hoovering up the scattered seed, shortly to followed by a pair of young male Pheasants.

A Robin soon arrived at the second post and gorged itself on the seed being accompanied by a pair of female Chaffinches. I then had regular visits from Blue Tits, Greenfinches, Goldfinch and Coal Tits. It was a pleasant surprise to see the Willow Tit showing nicely, flitting between the fence post and the security of the tree branches, it would come to the post for food and take it back to the shelter of the trees and eat it before returning for more food, this cycle continued for the remainder of the morning.

It was a lovey morning, other than Chris one of the wardens I spoke to no other visitors at the hide, he and his assistant called in to the hide to remove one of the empty feeders for cleaning.

Shortly after the wardens had left the hide the Long Tailed Tits arrived, I counted four of them, they flew in for food and no sooner had they picked up some sun flower hearts were back into the deep undergrowth. A pair of Reed Buntings were braver, they tried to dominate the posts preventing the other finches from reaching the food, that was until a Grey Squirrel arrived and sat on the post and devoured the remaining food. Once the Squirrel had disappeared I replenished the food. The first visitors back were a pair of Dunnocks who would take it in turn one on the post whilst the other waited on the floor for its turn until the other one flew off the post and visa-versa. At one stage a Blackbird came in for a feed too.  I thought a Magpie would fly in too but it stayed high up in the bushes just to the right of the hide.

There were lots of Tree Sparrows about this morning, these are lovely little birds, we don’t have them at home (we have lots of House Sparrows though) but there are plenty of them about here on the reserve, they are smaller than the House Sparrow and are currently on the ‘Red List’ having seen a 50% reduction in their numbers over the last twenty five years. 

Unfortunately the cold was getting colder and so at 11.30am I decided to pack up and head back to the Visitors Centre for a coffee before my journey home.