Lady Bradford's, Castle Bromwich.

Nice trip over to Castle Bromwich today to visit Lady Bradford's, St Mary and St Margaret's Church and the graveyard which is always full of birds. 

It wasn't quite as 'green' than on my last visit last October but the trees are just about to come into leaf and there were many 'sticky' buds around especially on the Horse Chestnut trees.

There were the usual mix of birds around including many songbirds, House Sparrow, Starling and Thrush in the church grounds but unfortunately there was also a Sparrowhawk circling above the church as well.

It was nice to see that there quite a few new Great Spotted Woodpecker 'holes' which will hopefully all have young in soon, just a pity the local arsonists like to set fire to the old trees in this location. Even though this land is supposed to be left to the people by Lady Bradford and not touched by human hands there have been a lot of trees chopped down here recently, thankfully it's been done before the birds can nest in them but they have chipped some trees where others have been left in huge piles which would normally be a good thing but the arsonists have already tried to set fire to them so far with no luck but if they are successful it could be a disaster. With plenty of tree remnants around I did manage to get some nice additions for the log piles in the back garden.

Birds seen today were Sparrowhawk, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chiffchaff, House Sparrow, Robin, Starling, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Song Thrush, Blackbird, Woodpigeon, Jackdaw, Carrion Crow and Magpie.