National Trust Hatfield Forest

Took a trip down the M11 to Essex and NT Hatfield Forest, a rather old English forest with no aspirations of seeing any particular bird species. We were there most of the day saw, in no particular order: Cormorant, Great Crested Grebe, Bullfinch, Black-headed Gull, Gadwall, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Jackdaw, Buzzard, Kestrel, Canada Goose, Great, Blue, Coal, Longtailed Tit, Robin, Treecreeper, Magpie, Jay.

Having tweaked the autofocus settings on my camera, quite pleased to get a pinsharp shot of a Kestrel taking flight from a tree…obviously, it was the Kestrel in the tree not yours truly.

Oh, and we saw a fox…although I wasn’t quite quick enough dialling down the exposure compensation from the bird snapping, so the photo was massively over-exposed and I had to do a bit of messing in PaintShop to normalise it.

There was a fairly bold Magpie near the cafe, kept still while he preened himself in a tree, still ended up fluffy even once he was done though. Shame you can’t see any of his blue, just the black and white from this angle, #GeordieBird nevertheless.

Time to take a close gander at a Canada Goose

Jay not walking

Treecreeper creeping up a tree