Another cold, crisp morning, the temperature was -1C when I left the house at 6.30am to take Meg & Gracie for their morning run. After breakfast I had a free morning so with M & G hard fast asleep, I packed the car with the camera gear, winter jacket and drove over to Fairburn Ings for the morning. It was just after 10am as I parked up in the visitor’s car park, the roads were still quite icy in places though the sun was shining and it was beginning to get warmer, the temperature gauge was reading 0C.  I called in to the Visitors Centre for a coffee and a catch up with the wardens and staff before heading to the ‘Pick up hide’. The main lake in front of the hide was quite heavily frozen and with just half a dozen Hen Pheasants walking the shore line on the far side of the lake that was the only activity on or near the lake this morning. 

There was nobody else in the hide when I arrived so picked my favourite place and set up the camera gear, within seconds of clamping up my camera a Robin flew across the front of my face and landed on the shelf at the side of me. I had a small box of bird food in my pocket so carefully removed the lid and placed the box alongside where the Robin was standing, he had a nice little treat, and kept popping back and forth during the morning.

I had a good look around the water’s edge, checking the fence posts for resting predators but nothing to be seen. The Highland cattle were grazing in the field to the right of the hide but well out of the way. 

There was lots of activity around the feeding station, I don’t know why as all the feeders were empty, I popped out of the hide  and put some seed and mealworm mix out for them, needless to say within five minutes I had to go and do the same again.

A pair of Bullfinches where busily feeding on some of the old fruit which was left on the bushes but as soon as they saw the fresh seed they soon came over for a snack. It was a good morning for Robins today, I counted at least three of them at any one time. They were closely followed by the Great Tit and Blue Tits. A male Blackbird spent the morning at the hide, enjoying the seed. A flock of Long Tailed Tits flew in for a couple of minutes literally before they disappeared to another part of the reserve.

A pair of Coal Tits kept popping in for food, their distinctive white patch clearly visible on the back of their head. Everything disappeared when a pair of Grey Squirrels came in for a look, although the feeders were still empty at the time they had a good sniff and spent several minutes searching for a morsel of food, eventually they ran off back into the undergrowth.

By late morning a warden had been to fill up and replenish the feeders and what a difference it made, the Bullfinch controlled the feeders and fence post, they were not happy when a Dunnock tried to share a fence post with them, and soon the Great Tits tried it on with the Bullfinch all to no avail, it wasn’t until the Bullfinches headed into the bushes that all the smaller birds other birds could sample the treats for them.

By 11.30am the cold was getting quite uncomfortable so reluctantly I left the solitude of the hide and headed back to the visitors centre for a cup of coffee just to get the circulation going again before the drive home. Another lovely morning down at the Ings.