On a beautiful sunny day with no wind, Pat and I enjoyed a 3hr walk around Bedelands, keeping a tally of all the birds we saw as we went.  The 54 blue tits was far beyond any previous count and also the 33 great tits.  There was a big commotion on the lake between 20 canada geese in three groups, or were they just warding off the cormorant looking down at them them from the top of the highest alder tree?  Only a few redwing around (11), mainly in the BMX field and the one between Freeks Lane and Watford Wood, plus a couple of songthrushes and a single goldfinch. We were disappointed to only find one each of long-tailed tit, goldcrest, treecreeper and green woodpecker and no marsh tit, coal tit, fieldfare, mistle thrush or even a starling!  The bird song near the football club was deafening so spring has sprung and the new bird boxes will soon be in use.  In all 30 species and 291 birds were counted.

Roy Ticehurst