A birding venue can never produce first class birding all the time. Sometimes we visit and there is an abundance of birds and at other times they are scarce and elusive. Marbury Park is no exception and whilst my first visit was exceptional the last two including this one has yielded few surprises. Many of the same birds are still around for I can hear them but it seems they are now bored with trying to impress me and have taken cover in the undergrowth.

Other birds we found in the woods included bluetit, greattit, coaltit, long tailed tit, wren, dunnock, robin, song thrush, chaffinch, gold crest, chiffchaff and nuthatch. Arriving back at the first hide we hurried for shelter as the heavens opened and a blanket of white hail fell across the valley. The birds thankfully appeared as quickly as the downfall started and over the lake we could see plenty of swallows and sand martins, great crested grebe, little grebe and the kingfisher which kept flying in but which sadly never sat where we could see them.

From this point on our fortunes started to improve. A nuthatch flew to the bird table, selected a sunflower seed and flew, not to a distant tree but to the dead tree that was right by where we were sitting. I have seen them on this tree before. It seems a popular place where they can wedge their surplus food into the deep weathered cracks of the trunk. Very close by they gave some classic views of this magical bird.

Then from the Nuthatch we picked up the trail of a pair of tree creepers. These have to be one of the most difficult of birds to photograph as they never stop moving. However you can usually get quite close to them and these birds did seem quite tame. They were steadily working their way through an open wooded area where the trees were evenly spaced and close together so as they flew from the top of one tree down to the base of another I found it easy to keep up with them.

The textures and colours of the tree barks were wonderful and made for some fascinating back drops to my tree creeper photographs. Running from tree to tree as I followed these active little birds was great fun.

Heading back to the car thinking my birding day is over I hear the lesser spotted woodpecker. The sound is a strange one as it carries and seems to spread out so trying to find exactly where it is coming from is very difficult. We manage to focus our search down to one of two big trees that are growing close together. The sun is in our faces and we cant change our position so the light is in our favour. The woodpecker is calling furiously and it is so frustrating but even two pairs of eyes cant locate the bird. After several minutes the calling stops and the trail goes cold once again. Finding this elusive bird is proving impossible.