Brambling

I was thrilled to bits this week to see my first ever brambling.

Life tick!

And this just a few weeks after my mum had spotted one in her garden. Unfortunately, she's already pulled ahead of me in the twitching stakes with a sighting of some redpolls.

The brambling was visiting my bird feeder alongside a group of the usual suspects. It held on to the feeder perch for quite some time, obstinately ignoring the needs of the other birds around it! It would grab a seed, then look towards the house while it crushed it in its finch beak.

After a while it left the feeder and hung around for a bit on a branch in our lilac. Then it was gone. I'm afraid I don't have a picture.

Bramblings are winter visitors to the UK. In the summer they breed in Scandinavia and western Siberia. This bird was a male in its winter plumage. The head featured a speckled black/buff pattern and the orange patches on its feathers made it look a little-chaffinch like, but it was easy to tell this was a different species.

I haven't seen it come back since so I guess it was just passing through the area.

I also recently saw a bird of prey that I thought could have been a red kite, because I saw a large bright rust-orange patch across its upper plumage. When I got home and looked it up I realised it definitely wasn't and it was almost certainly a kestrel. So I guess the red kite will have to remain a delight for another day!