January was a month of photographing garden birds and walking the local areas as Scotland entered it's second COVID-19 lockdown.
The month started very cold, with the paths and roads turning to ice rinks between scatterings of snow. I ventured out for a New Year's walk and tallied up a good start to my year list, including redwing which I didn't manage to see last year.
I had some time off work early in the month so cleaned out all the feeders and topped them up with fat balls and high energy bird seed. This attracted a variety of birds to my garden including: blackbirds, house sparrows, tree sparrows, robin, collared dove, wood pigeon, bluetits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinch and starlings.
A redwing even made an appearance.
I set up a trail cam, which was a Christmas gift. I was pretty sure I had a regular hedgehog visiting the hedgehog house as the food always disappeared but I was keen to catch it on the camera.
Here's the culprit in action:
My walks have been local but enjoyable. Dalkeith Country Park had a good number of tree creepers and nuthatch.
I took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the end of the month and recorded a good number of birds. I hope and expect that the survey had a good number of contributors this year, as people had more time to take an hour out of their day to grab a cuppa and watch their garden activity.
Four tree sparrows sat stubbornly on my neighbours garage roof for a good 10 minutes rummaging in the moss, but didn't venture down to my feeders unfortunately for my count.
It's been a cold, snowy and largely uneventful month but hopfully February will provide more opportunities to get out and about!