Aston End

Haven't done the 5 mile circuit for some time. and I wasn't sure how it would go, but I took it slow easy and managed to do it this morning. It was a lovely winters day, rather cold, very sunny but there were problems with icy stretches of roads, and some of the fields were rather muddy in places.
Birds were very patchily distributed with long stretches that were very quiet. Just about the most visible and vocal birds were Blue and Great Tits which seemed to be present and very active everywhere.
The little copse near Redwings farm is always pretty good and I spent a while here hoping for a Nuthatch, but without success, but fortunately one was singing further down the lane towards Aston End and I got reasonable views of another later on in the bluebell bank at the end of Holders Lane.
There were a small number of Skylarks in the fields but there was a distinct lack of finches and buntings.
Numbers of thrushes were as expected rather low-it doesn't seem to be a good year for them. Lots of Blackbirds of course, and a couple of singing Song Thrushes but I only managed to locate three Redwing and a total of 18 Fieldfare.
The conditions should have suited raptors, and I managed to see five Buzzards, two Kites and a Kestrel.

I didn't get any decent wildlife photos, but took the short lens along in the hope of getting a few scenic shots. In the end I concentrated on some frosty logs. Ones been reworked into a B&W image as I felt it worked well.