Abington Naturewatch: Tapping Long-tailed Tits, and other birds

For the last few weeks, Andy M has had a pair of Long-tailed Tits in his garden, displaying together and looking for likely nest sites. Most recently, they have taken to flitting onto the window-sill, tapping the window pane twice, then flitting along to the next window and doing the same, then back again. They can keep this up for 10 minutes or more, and never really seem to tire of it. I wonder if they are investigating their own reflections, but they could just be doing it for fun!

Andy has also had a partially-albino Blackbird in the garden. Often the white feathers are on the wings, but this male is somewhat unusual in having white feathers on the back and around the eye.

Finally, on Granta Park this week, there was a Little Egret paddling around in the flooded field behind Great Abington church, as well as a Treecreeper near the sluice, and a pair of Nuthatch feeding in the larger trees adjacent to Abington Hall. It was quite quiet and Andy could hear the Nuthatch chipping away at the bark whilst feeding. A single Great Crested Grebe has been back on the lake for a few weeks now too - first seen on 19th Feb. No sign of its mate yet though.