A 3 day weekend and hopefully a 4th

Snow has fell throughout Friday morning making birds from further out in the countryside to come into my hometown of Berkeley. Special birds included some great sightings of them and with all of us sledging on a hill behind the old police station birds sighted included:

• 1 grey heron
• 1 raven
• 1 buzzard
• 1 male kestrel
• 2 pied wagtails feeding on the mud after Saturday's minor melting period
• 1 great spotted woodpecker feeding two feilds down on nut feeders
• 9 green finches
• 20+ chaffinches
• 20+ gold finches
• Corvids
• Black headed, common and a few herring gulls flew over

Rarer birds

• 300+ redwing and the fieldfares have been moving south down the river as the ground is solid. Skylarks have been joining the redwing flocks and the lapwings have also being flying south because the grounds frozen. Amazingly this redwing influx has been going as far down the river as Burnham on sea where they had 30,000. 
• 200+ fieldfare
• 9 skylarks
• 50+ lapwing
• 11BLACK TAILED GODWITS- very rare sightings near the town. Also possibly the birds from Slimbridge WWT
• 1 cormarant
• 4 REDSHANKS were flying very high up flying towards the river and went over our house. Very rare over the town as their mostly sighted at the Severn.Sighted on the 19th.

                                                                                                                                                     
Garden sightings

• 40+ redwings landed in the berry bush and the apple tree on the 18th. I was able to get some great sightings as they flew over calling but then came back and landed in the trees.
• 30+ fieldfare landed in the trees and 2 even stayed all day in the berry bush on the 18th
• 40+ starlings landed in the trees together
• 1 cormarant  flew over (same one sighted from field) 18th
• 20+ lapwing flew over on the 19th
• 1 female sparrowhawk
• 1 Raven
• 20+ chaffinches
• 20+ gold finches
• 30+ house sparrows
• The familiar  blackbirds including at least 14 different males and 4 female blackbirds including "Whitey", "Whiteless" and the new birds which are called "Stripe" which has a white stripe through the whitish breast and "Snow flake" who is the same as whiteless but has a white part underneath the tail. Also snow flake's named because she's one of the many blackbirds to feed on an apple on a table.
• 2 blue tits which arrived in the garden on the 19th
• 2 great tits flew over the garden and into the bushes
• Wood pigeons, collard doves and even a few feral pigeons
• 10+ black headed gulls (most in summer plumage), 10+ common gulls, 2 lesser black backed gulls and even a herring gull flew over
• 1 robin in the garden
• Corvids
• 1 mistle thrush flew over
• 1 pied wagtail (1st in the garden) feeding in the snow