Dirty goings on down Northaw Great Wood

Mud, glorious mud. Sometimes I find myself choosing a site to watch birds that makes it really difficult to watch birds. 

The Northaw Great Wood in Herts was a bit like that today. On the plus side; the woodland birds think it’s nearly spring and have begun to be very active; the trees are still leafless and this makes it easy to see anything that moves. Finally, with a lot of fog about, a trip around a wood seemed a good idea.

On the down side; the heavy rain recently had turned the trails into mud baths – think sticky baths that checked your every stride; people. People with dogs and or small children. For some reason, dogs and children get carried away by wet slippery mud. Oh and dogs, a special notice to myself. I must stop befriending them in wet and muddy conditions. They leap up to me and leave muddy pawprints all over my trousers. The wood was filled with cacophonic cries and yelps that would have sent all the wildlife running for the hills...if there were any.

Northaw Great Wood

The Northaw Great Wood is great for nuthatches, common treecreepers and marsh tits. I was hoping to see all these and although that didn’ go completely to plan, an unexpected superstar did put in an appearance.

The wood was full of birdsong. Song thrushes and great tits were audible from the carpark and it wasn’t long before nuthatches could be heard and seen. These were accompanied by long-tailed tits, blue tits and coal tits, wrens and robins.

I had chosen to take the yellow trail that circumnavigates the wood. This was very muddy and even with thick tread soled boots I was skidding everywhere. The outside track of a wood usually offers you the best chance of seeing birds as they generally prefer the outskirts of a wood, not the colour yellow. Next up. the tricky common treecreeper. The treecreeper can be found with tit flocks and loves nothing better than to annoy birdwatchers by landing on the side of a trunk of a tree (usually the opposite side to the watcher and then proceeding to be very mobile as it scurries up the tree and then flying off to another tree just as you focus on the thing.

Stiff neck. They love tall trees. They insist on traveling up trees just high enough to make it uncomfortable to watch them. They are gits. So, I found a few common treecreepers. They were with great tits, coal tits and a posse of goldcrests. I decided to sweat it out as I was determined to photograph them. A great spotted woodpecker put in an appearance as did a few distracting nuthatches. But it was the treecreepers I really wanted.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Common Treecreeper

Further along the yellow (or muddy brown) trail, in an area that usually holds marsh tit I spotted a bird I haven’t seen for about ten years. I visit wood a lot and never expect to see one of these so when one appears in front of you, there is a moment of incredulous disbelief. But it was there and it was in my bins and I loved it. Oh, sorry it was a lesser spotted woodpecker. By the time I had set up the scope it had vanished but I could have rolled about in the mud I was so happy.

As I headed back up the muddy trail towards the car park I was met by a group of Sunday afternoon strollers. One, a woman, wore white trousers and heels! Good luck I thought.