7.
WINTER BIRD-WATCHING IN EPPING FOREST
Winter, for me, is the best season for
bird-watching. I have spent many happy hours
in freezing rain and snow just looking for
birds. Though previously my winter bird-
watching has been confined to the migrant
"meccas" of Wales and coasts of Norfolk and
Suffolk, I had spent little time in Epping
Forest. Early this January, with some time
on my hands, I decided to see what the Forest
had to offer and the results, though less
spectacular than the well-known bird-watching
localities, are nonetheless interesting.
Most of the observations were made
within only a small area of Epping Forest,
mainly around Connaught Waters, between the
11th and 20th January 1978.
The most noticeable addition to the
resident avian fauna were the large flocks
of Finches, particularly in Bury Wood. Here
the hornbeams and beech trees provide an
abundance of seeds which attract these birds.
Most frequent were Greenfinches and I saw
many small flocks, often associating with
other species of Finch, almost invariably
Chaffinches, foraging amongst the leaf litter.
I hoped to see the Hawfinch as Bury Wood
was one of its traditional wintering grounds.
Formerly it was an abundant species and early
this century overwintering flocks of 300+
were seen but since then numbers have declined
dramatically. The bird is rather an elusive
creature and I searched painstakingly through
numerous small groups of Greenfinches without
success until I came across a half-dozen or
so finches feeding beneath a Beech tree. One