Winter bird walk, Sydenham Hill Woods

 The astute reader might notice that the image above is not of a bird, but a giant puffball, Calvatia gigantea. Daniel Greenwood led this very interesting walk, the birds were at first quite challenging to spot though highly audible, We did see a pair of Goldcrest as hoped, also some Nuthatches and lots of Bluetits, We clearly heard a Greater Spotted Woodpecker, which sounds like a squeaky toy, this apparently is its contact call. Below, this is meant to be a Goldcrest, they are one of the tiniest birds in Britain, weighing no more than a 5 p piece. 

We also heard the carousel like call of the Goldcrest, the tic tic ticking of a Wren, the jiggly Bluetit call, the dee dit, dee dit of the Nuthatch, (did someone say it's like a referee's 
whistle?) We heard the 'Seapy' sound of Redwing, which we also saw flying in a tight-knit group above our heads, Redwing also fly en masse at night and are  hunted by birds of prey. Daniel also said the glade in the wood is a good place to spot birds of prey, who are looking for mice etc, 

Other factoids: Apparently the oak tree by Belair house has a little owl in it. 
Tawny Owls are often seen at midday in Sydenham Hill Woods, they are the apex predator 
of the wood and may be emerging as a particular British species, as they do not migrate (if I understood this properly?). We also saw long tailed tits, Daniel said brother and sister ones 
often help rear the next generation, how gregarious and tribal they are!  The grand houses that were  once located in the woods had names like Sydenham Hoo and Beechcroft, in the image of the fallen trees below  you can see the remains of tennis courts behind them.

We saw quite a few fungi, the Hen of the Woods grows year round according to Daniel, I also saw some bonnets, the Miller, Candlesnuff fungus, which look like white antlers,and what I thought was jelly fungi, but is actually Hairy Curtain Crust, all looking pretty healthy, although the Hairy Curtain Crust on the fallen  tree branches were frozen. 

There was ice on the pond (see the image furthest below) the giant puff balls really were huge , at least as big as footballs, I never would have spotted them on my own as they were tucked away, hidden by ivy, not far from the Hen of the woods.