Spotted mothcatcher

A trip to the Forest of Dean a couple of weekends ago to find some wood warblers was only partially successful. There were some around, singing their heads off, but not in places I could snap them.  However spotted flycatchers are equally cute if not so talented vocally ...........

OK just bird on stick shots, but always nice to see.

Being down and out can be good!

It was no great surprise to find that last years woodpecker nest had been taken over this year, and the partial in-filling of the hole was classical.  I had one short session with the nuthatches and hoped they'd still be around in better light the following weekend.

Not all was quite what it seemed though - the real orientation of the tree was a bit more towards the horizontal .......  Over winter it had slipped a bit.

Saturday started with wind and rain though and then in the afternoon Kay got a call from a birdwatching neighbour to say the tree was down.  That evening we wandered up the lane to find the tree was as down as she said, but the adults were still going into the nest hole - which now was under the tree pointed down at the ground (it's just where the small tree crosses the trunk - sorry low light phone pic!). At least nuthatches are more than agile enough to deal with that.

I didn't try to get any pictures, but few days later Kay heard a lot of calling around the branches and got one equally bad phone snap of a fledgling, so it seems all ended well.

Better quality pics next time I promise!