New year and already a new species...

 Well after thinking I'd seen one yesterday, I can finally confirm that I have today!! It's a Syrian Woodpecker. They are very similar to the Great Spotted Woodpecker  (in looks as well as the calls!), but told apart by the black line from the bill not continuing all the way to the nape, and the black outer tail feather, along with a few other less obvious differences. 

 Since first visiting Romania in June 2013, I have seen 9 of the 10 species of Woodpecker that breed here. Hopefully it wont be long before I catch up with a Three-toed Woodpecker. The next challenge will then be to photograph them all!

Quality not quantity...

Starting my yearly bird list in Romania was always going to be a bit of a challenge, because during the winter time most of the birds fly south and west to avoid the cold weather. Despite this there were still a few 'decent' species on show, and although we saw fewer than 20 species today we still managed to see Great Grey Shrike, Hawfinch, Crested Lark, Fieldfare (a Romanian 'tick'), Tree Sparrow and I think Syrian Woodpecker! Having never seen a Syrian Woodpecker before, I'll having to go back a make sure it definitely is one!

One of several Tree Sparrows seen. Unfortunately, a sight that is no longer common across most of the UK!

Trail camera success...

After capturing several videos of sheep on my trail camera, I finally managed to get what I was after!!

I will find them...

 Over the past week, I've been finding more and more Wild Boar tracks in the forests surrounding Cluj. Knowing that they are mostly nocturnal, myself and Silvia decided to come back from the cinema (it was about 03:00) via the woods near to the flat. Despite being extremely quite, we didn't see a thing! What made it even more frustrating was finding some fresh tracks today right where we had been walking.

Hopefully when the snow starts to fall, they'll become a bit easier to track!

Definitely not camera shy...

My luck was in today while strolling around the woods (thankfully I had remembered to put the memory card in the camera today, something I didn't manage to do yesterday!!). Usually when a Red Squirrel is on the ground and it spots you, it'll run up to the top of the nearest tree and stay there! However this one was different. It just hopped a short way up the tree, and let me get within 15 feet of him!! Hopefully this will be the first of many close encounters with these awesome creatures.

Moments before, this little chap came down to to puddle in front of me for a drink. Unfortunately this one wasn't so approachable! 

This is a Middle Spotted Woodpecker. As it's name would suggest, it's larger that the Lesser Spotted and smaller than the Great Spotted but very similar in plumage. All three species are present in this woodland, along with their bigger cousins the Green and Black Woodpecker.

Just another day in the woods..

After a very misty morning, it was nice to see the sun shining in the afternoon, so I decided to go for a stroll in the woods. Despite all of the leaves now being on the floor, there was still plenty of wildlife in the trees, including several Great Spotted Woodpeckers.

I saw some interesting behavior from this chap above. He would take the Beech mast while on the wing, then fly back to the tree trunk to crack it open! There seems to be a good crop of beech mast this year, this was one of several Red Squirrels seen making the most of it.

Other birds of note today included 100+ Hawfinches, 20+ Long-tailed tits, 40+ Blackbirds and at least 3 of these little Treecreepers.

(I decided to try black and white with this image. Believe me it looks a lot better like this, than in colour)

Still finding new species...

Despite the cold weather finally starting to arrive here (although not as cold as the UK yet), I'm still managing to add new (none weather related) species to my wildlife lists! This week I've added Mandarin (female pictured) and Yellow-legged Gull to my bird list. I'm actually looking forward  for the snow to arrive, I'm hoping it will bring in species like Redpoll, Fieldfare, Waxwing, Rough-legged Buzzard or something a bit rarer!!

Female Wood Duck and Mandarin can be difficult to distinguish! Thing to look out for are: the colour of the bill (Mandarins have a pale 'nail' on the end, whereas the Wood Duck's is dark), the spots on the flanks (Mandarins have rounded spots, whereas the Wood Duck's are much thinner) and the white around the eye (Mandarins have a lot less white, and usually looks a lot neater)

This is a Drake Mandarin (picture taken back at home in Wales). They are a lot more colourful than the females, and very different from the Drake Wood Duck.

Little bit of bread no cheese...

Despite there being very few birds around Crit, it was great to see good numbers of Yellowhammers around the farms. Yellowhammers are one of the several 'farmland species' that have suffered in the UK from intense farming and the use of pesticides!! Traditional farming methods are still used in Crit, and the benefits to the wildlife are easy to see.

Other notable wildlife seen over the weekend included 2 Sparrowhawks, 1 Goshawk, 10+ Common Buzzards, 4 Great Grey Shrikes, 2 Little Owls, good numbers of Hawfinch and Tree Sparrow, 4 Danube Clouded Yellows, 1 Meleager's Blue, 2 Small Whites and lots of evidence of Bear!!

Darting around...

Despite the glorious sunshine, I was struggling to find much in the way of wildlife around the village of Crit today. So I decided to head down to the river to see if there were any frogs and toads still around. There were a few, but none of them wanted to pose for the Camera. My attention was soon drawn to a handful of Common Darters (I think that's what they are??)

They were pretty hard to keep in the camera lens - as their name suggest they are very mobile and agile! But with a lot of patience I managed to fire off a couple of photos which I'm over the moon with!!

The two photos above show the pair in the position known as 'Tandem Linkage'. It's a way for the male to keep a hold of 'his' female while they're looking for places to lay the eggs. Dragonflies only live for a few weekss once they are out of their nymph stage, so not letting is quite important!! 

A much easier Darter to photograph!

What were they thinking...

If you think the English name for this bird (a Hawfinch) sounds a bit dodgey, then you should check out it's Latin name! Although we have a small breeding population of these birds in the UK, numbers increase during the winter months when several birds from main land Europe escape the colder climates for our 'much warmer' winter!! These birds are very shy, and despite there being large numbers of them here in Cluj, I'm still not able to get that close to them (this photo has been heavily cropped) .

Back in the UK, I've been lucky enough to help Tony Cross ring several of these birds in North Wales. They may look harmless, but believe me that beak is a lethal weapon. It can crack open cherry stones, so if you're not to careful when handling them, there's a good chance of losing part of your finger!

(one of the colour ringed birds from our North Wales project. For more info on these and other bird ringing in Mid Wales visit www.midwalesringers.blogspot.com )

Other winged creatures...

While out for a walk with Silvia, Marcela and Tudor at Turda's Keys today (we walked the around and over the right hand part of it),

we found several winged creatures apart from birds. The highlight for all of us was this Noctule Bat.

Closely followed by this preying Mantis.

Other sightings included this very well camouflaged Moth,

several species of butterfly, including Red Admiral, Clouded Yellow, Danube Clouded Yellow and a couple of others that we couldn't identify. Then there was this pretty cool looking spider (I think a Garden Spider), which was only about the size of a 5p coin, but still didn't look like he wanted to be messed with!!

(pic taken by Silvia)

Urban hoodies...

Fortunately not the hooded chavs we get back in the UK. These guys are Hooded Crows, similar to the Carrion Crows that you usually seen on England and Wales, but they look a lot cooler! At the moment in Cluj, it seems like we have the whole  of the Romania population roosting at night in the city. Thousands of them gather at night along with larger numbers of Rooks and Jackdaws. It's quite a spectacle!!

During the day there are far fewer around (as most of them travel quite a long way to go and feed), but still plenty enough to see and photograph. The river is always a favored spot for them