This morning the cold north westerly wind that has been a constant and irritating companion to the more welcome sunshine of the last couple of days relented and it truly felt as if Spring was upon us.
An irresistible urge to be out of the house and to bury my soul in the vitality and energy of this season was upon me but where to go?
No one would be surprised that I opted for the cemetery at Woodstock. Here lies peace both for me and for its unknowing occupants that lie forever below the ancient leaning gravestones. A square of grass and yew trees just two hundred metres off the busy main thoroughfare of bustling Woodstock, to all extents and purposes unvisited and unthought of by the good folk of Woodstock but encapsulated within its walls would be a microcosym of Spring - and yes Hawfinches.
The sun of the last few days has served to bring the paradox of new life to this sacrosanct acre for the dead and.it is as if a curtain has been raised to reveal a sudden burgeoning of colour, the sulphur yellow flowers of primroses in their multitudes glowing under the dark yews and even embracing some of the more ancient graves. Tiny, fragile violets proffer their small flowers an inch or two above the grass which, now responding to the longer daylight hours is becoming that bright energised green that signifies new growth.
A Greenfinch struggles with a pigeon feather, preparing to carry it off to line a nest being constructed in the dark interior of one of thc yews while her mate perched high above in a tree, emits a drawling contented dwzeeeeeeeeeee, almost the bird equivalent of a yawn and so redolent of this time of year. Blackthorn belies its name, a twiggy presence frothy white with a million flowers, that exude a sickly scent like one gets on the cusp of decay, eddying on the air and luring insects on a false trail to pollinate the tiny florets.
Few come here and for the most part I am on my own although now the secret is out about the presence of the Hawfinches there is sometimes company in the form of one or two other birders or photographers.I do not know why I differentiate between the two as these days everyone carrys a camera of one sort or another
So let's stick to birders.
I stand in my usual place by a large box bush endeavouring to harmonise my green jacket with the hard green leaves of the bush. I am excited as today I would be trying for something different with the Hawfinches.An earlier conversation with Gareth about the Hawfinches, which we have been feeding with sunflower seeds for some weeks now, involved ways of getting different images to the classic ones that everyone takes.I for one am always enthusiastic about capturing different poses and Gareth feels likewise
Why not try a log I suggested
With luck the birds will perch on the log and then we can get the whole bird in the frame including its legs and feet.
Up to now our close images were, for the most part of the finches on the ground with their legs and feet hidden in the grass whilst others, less satisfactory, were of more distant birds perched high in a tree.
I wondered where we could get a suitable log but Gareth in the intervening days pre empted this concern by finding and lugging a good sized log to the favoured feeding area under the now famous cherry tree.At first sight of the log I was amazed he had managed to get it to where it was as it must have been very heavy to carry.
Now here I was staring across to the log, lying broadside under the cherry tree but sadly with no Hawfinch on top.It lay on the short grass, an empty stage, primroses and violets, garlands around its bulk.
There were no Hawfinches in the cemetery that was for certain and I knew that a long wait was inevitable.Sometimes it can be hours, the longest so far being two and a half hours but this is the way it usually is with watching these birds. I looked to a sky that was unsullied blue, not a cloud to be seen and high above the mewing calls of three Buzzards drifted down from birds that were no more than tiny silhouettes in their heaven
Birds came and went, Dunnock, Greenfinch and Blackbird. The Chaffinches so prevalent earlier in the year seem to have gone now. Two Robins flew from yew to yew trickling out a wafer thin song as they surveyed their territory.Their nest will soon be constructed in an ivied recess on the boundary wall.
If it had been said that I would be content to stand for two hours staring at nothing in particular I would have baulked at the suggestion yet here I was two hours and counting, waiting, waiting, anticipating and not bored at all.
Some of my time was spent in speculation about the origin of these Hawfinches. Are they local birds, perhaps from the extensive grounds of Blenheim Palace across the road, where there is plenty of suitable habitat and secret places or are they from further afield, mainland Europe perhaps as this winter past has seen a minor invasion of migrant Hawfinches.Whatever the answer is they will be gone soon. April is the peak time of courtship for Hawfinches and pair bonding and these six birds will be forming pairs and soon setting up territories either locally or abroad but not in the cemetery
For now I am making the utmost of this unlikely opportunity to get close to a notoriously shy and elusive bird knowing it will not last for much longer.
A movement in the tangle of trees and bushes behind the log raised my interest. It was the outline of a bird, bulky, a hawfinch perhaps or more likely a Greenfinch, it was impossible to tell though the mesh of twigs and branches.The bird disappeared.
Twenty minutes further on and suddenly, thrillingly as it always is, a male Hawfinch landed on the top of the log and set about consuming the seed put there for the sole purpose of achieving this result.
The male soon returned, typically unobtrusively, approaching low down via an elder. Hawfinches so love to be un noticed until the last minute, appearing through thick cover, forever secretive, inscrutable and enigmatic.
He commandeered the log once more and fed avidly as I filled my camera's memory card with image after image.
This was it. I would achieve no better. A male Hawfinch as much in the open as it was ever likely to be.
In the sunlight on a Spring day in Oxfordshire.