Week 6 - 01 - 07 February 2026 (Nuthatch and visit from a Sparrowhawk)

The common theme for 2026 was repeated, with it again being a wet week where I pulled over 40 mm of rain from my rain gauge, to add to the 221 mm that fell in January. However, this week I did manage my biggest dog walk (a 2 hour effort) in the dry, and had a cracking garden visitor!

On Sunday the 1st Feb, I planned to explore much of the Cranbrook part of the patch during my work lunch break. The dog had his own ideas and disappeared off for 20 mins curtailing the ground I could cover. A fairly unremarkable walk, with the only oddity being the largest flock of Meadow Pipets (35) I've seen since October (when they were enjoying the recently tilled fields). They were within the Great Meadow, picking over the recently flooded patches.

Working in the office in Exeter meant no daytime walk on Monday 2nd, so the next was a very soggy lunch time walk on Tuesday 3rd with either light rain or light drizzle near continuous through Rockbeare skirting the edges of the manor estate. I did manage to see my first Nuthatch of 2026 though, in the wooded margin just east of Lions Farm. Identified through sound first, I then found it through the binoculars, it looked quite a soggy site! But number 47 for the year. 

On the Wednesday 4th I was heading onto night shifts, so had a couple of hours in the morning to get a decent and rare dry dog walk in. I decided for the first time this year to head to Percy Wakely Woods on the eastern edge of the one mile radius patch, taking in Gribble Lane too. This was a cracker with 30 species being recorded, including a female Sparrowhawk hunting and quite a few pairs in suitable habitat, including Great Spotted Woodpeckers and Bullfinches.

Coppiced section of the wood

Percy Wakely Woods is a lovely small woodland with a figure of 8 walk around it. The wood is an island within areas of arable farming for the moment, in the coming years housing estates are planned that will abut its northern and western edges, no doubt increasing the pressure from dog walkers. Managed by the Woodland Trust, much of the wood is immature trees, with some good ponds dug out, areas actively coppicing, great under story scrub, and at the northern end an area of mature trees. In the summer months, it is a great spot or Chiffchaff and Blackcap, in winter Redwing and Fieldfare are the most numerous migrants.

Mature trees, NW edge of the wood

In Percy Wakely, I bumped into Robin from the Axe Estuary (Bird) Ringing Group, who was setting up with the Woodland Trusts permission for the first known mist netting session in the woods. I'll keep an eye on their blog to see if they right about the session, but in future visits I'll be keeping an eye out for ringed birds in the woods.

Also on the walk on the southern part of Gribble Lane I caught up with a Nuthatch again, although only ID'd through call on this date.

On Thursday the 5th February in addition to the short / wet dog walk, we had a visitor to the back garden (which borders the Platinum Park in Cranbrook). A male Sparrowhawk turned up just before lunch, alarming all the regular birds, and then relaxed on our fence for 5 minutes preening before heading off south only for Great and Long Tailed Tits to move through where it had been within 10 seconds.  

I got a few quick snaps through the kitchen window of the bird in very nice soft / flat light. I was quite happy with them all considered. 

The subsequent walk around the Ecopark and a section of Southbrook Lane revealed many frogs in a spawning / mating frenzy in some of the shallow pools around the Ecopark and the pond by Barling Walk. I have not seen such a sceptical before and it's something I'd like to try film. hundreds of frogs crawling over each over in desperation to try and access and fertilise the spawn the females were releasing. I also saw a male Robin doing a courtship display to a watching female, almost identical to this video on YouTube.

Male Kestrel in the Great Meadow Sunday 7th Feb 2026

On Saturday 7th, I saw the first ever Siskin in my garden, with 2 female Siskin in the Goldfinch flock on my sunflower heart feeder. Finally a late afternoon / early morning dog walk was topped off with our local male Kestrel seen perched in the apple trees, oak trees and hunting in the Great Meadow and adjacent nature area to the west.

So adding the Nuthatch this week takes the patch list for 2026 to 47 species. And just in general some lovely experiences this week, especially with birds of prey.