I saw a Nuthatch

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

One of the places I'm often drawn to when walking up the Welcombe is in Clopton Park where the two old oak trees stand down and to the seasonal pond, the magnificent hornbeams and the ash trees that seem to be all decaying.

Those ash trees in various stages of degeneration provide a great habitat for green and spotted woodpeckers, jackdaws and crows. These birds nest in the many holes the ash provides and the spotted woodpeckers can be heard tapping the branches for grubs.

Anticipating a change in the weather we decided to take our walk as usual and found our way to the swimming pool where the run off from the hills was too much for the pool and had overflowed forming mini lakes and a healthy stream across and down towards Margaret's Well, joining the ditch there.

Nuthatch - Clopton Park April16

We followed the water flow up towards the hornbeams and stopped to enjoy the lace-like veil of catkins covering them. Looking up I saw this Nuthatch on the trunk of an old ash tree. The Tree Creeper is a quite common bird here but this is the first time I've seen the Nuthatch. The Tree Creeper is smaller, brown and white and favours moving up the trunk to search for food. It is unable to go down head first so hops backwards to achieve that.  In contrast the Nuthatch has a beautiful orange-red breast, is larger and moves both up and down the trunk head first.

A good spot you'll agree and the bird kindly paused long enough for me to fumble around getting my camera out and snapping a few pics.