At Fairburn Ings, the majority of leaves have now fallen and the birches take their turn to provide pointillist splashes of colour, less saturated than those of beech and maple that glowed brightly earlier in the month.
As the surrounding vegetation dies back, the more sombre tones serve to enhance the papery white birch trunks and their dark, thin lateral branches that still retain the small serrated yellow leaves.
There was plenty of bird activity, at one point over forty Goldfinch flew into view and alighted in the treetops (left and centre), a minute or so later a similar number of Redwing circled the area, coming to rest in the uppermost branches of the tree to the right.
Another pleasing sighting were 4 Brambling feeding on the topmost branches of a Birch, although sadly I only managed this record shot. Plenty more sightings included a male and female Bullfinch, a Fieldfare, Kingfisher, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Marsh Tit, Long Tail Tit, Blackbird, Robin, Mute Swan, Cormorant, Moor Hen, and two Red Kites near Garforth.
Fairburn Ings is an interesting place - I went there once, many years ago now, with my local RSPB group and had a good day. Hope you get a closer look at Bramblings soon - they're one of favourite small birds and I get an enormous amount of pleaseure from having them in the garden in the winter months. Glad to see to back again, Linda.
ReplyDeleteYou captured the beautiful colours really well, I love this time of year!
ReplyDeleteNice to see thats there still a bit of colour.A lot of the trees here are just about stripped clean.
ReplyDeleteOnly been to Fairburn Ings once, we stayed in York for a week - the Minster is amazing as is most of the city - a good centre for a birding holiday actually.
ReplyDeleteMy Regards Linda.