Hawfinches - Woodstock

One thing I enjoy about birding is that you never know what you'll get week to week. At the end of February a Hawfinch was reported in a tree near to Hensington Road cemetery in Woodstock. Having not seen one this year I decided to go and try and see it. I knew they had been seen in and around the cemetery during the winter so opted to look for the reported bird there and that day I saw a couple high up in some of the tall trees in the cemetery. I was pleased with that given most of the time that is the best kind of view you can hope for of these birds. But knowing they were around and getting reported regularly had me wanting more. And being only a short distance from home, I wanted to make the most of the opportunity to see them. Inevitably, they became a bit of an obsession. Over the course of probably a dozen visits to the cemetery, mostly early morning when the sun was out, the views I got gradually improved and it was possible to get a feel for their movements and behaviour. One morning a single bird came down onto one of the paths with a Greenfinch and fed on Yew seeds. Seeing one on the ground was an unexpected thrill and quite quickly a plan was hatched with fellow enthusiasts Ewan and Nick to put some sunflower seeds down to encourage them to feed on the ground some more. There just happened to be a nice sunny spot under some trees that was ideal. Having seeded the area during the week, I returned the following weekend and didn't have to wait for the birds as they were already down feeding when I arrived at about 7am. The plan had worked! From that point on they were reliably down on this area every day and gave some fantastic views alongside the local Greenfinches and Chaffinches. The cemetery is nice and quiet so the birds could feed happily on the ground without disturbance. The odd domestic cat kept them on their toes, however. As tends to happen, you always want a slightly better view, and it was a nice challenge to try and get some better photos on each visit. It took a fair amount of patience and standing still for long periods of time to get to the point where I was happy I'd wrung just about everything out of my attempts to pap these cracking little birds. After those initial sightings a few weeks ago, if you'd told me I would have repeated, prolonged views like I have had, I wouldn't have believed it.

It was difficult to know for certain how may birds there were. Definitely four, maybe one or two more at times, but they never all gathered together to make counting them easy. The females were far bolder than the lone male. On the occasions the male did come down to the ground to feed, it was chased around by the females.

The photos below are in a general chronological order which shows the gradual improvement in the views I got of the birds.