Hob Hey Wood and the surrounding area is a great place to watch birds. The woodland has all of the species expected of ancient semi-natural woodland in Cheshire and the surrounding fields contain most of the usual farmland birds.
This blog post is about what birds can be seen in the area, based on my own observations over the last ten years.
The photographs shown were taken by myself, although not necessarily in Hob Hey wood.
What you can see
The area is good for owls. Barn, little and tawny owls all breed in the area and can be seen (or more likely heard) on an evening or night walk to and through the wood. Tawny owls, in particular, are very common and will normally be present in numbers in the wood.
There’s a good number of species present in the wood year-round: great spotted woodpecker; nuthatch; treecreeper; stock dove; jackdaw; jay; goldcrest; and the usual tit species (great, long-tailed, coal, blue, and occasionally marsh tit).
The walk to the wood can often produce yellowhammer; green woodpecker; meadow pipit; wheatear (in spring); and potentially a fly-by raven or peregrine.
Summer visitors
Summer brings the warblers: willow warbler; chiffchaff; blackcap; whitethroat and sometimes lesser whitethroat in the wood or surrounding hedgerows making an early morning visit a dawn-chorus delight with all the bird species singing their hearts out to defend a territory. At this time of year, it’s good that the birds can be heard as the thick canopy of leaves can make them really difficult to see!
Winter visitors
It’s much easier to see the birds in winter when fieldfare and redwing will be present with the all-year-round other thrushes, song thrush, mistle thrush and blackbird. Occasionally, brambling, siskins or redpolls will be encountered. A more secretive visitor is the woodcock. This can sometimes be inadvertently ‘flushed’ from hiding as you walk through the wood. It can also be seen feeding in the fields next to the wood during the night.
The wider area
A birdwatcher who wants to extend the number of species seen simply has to walk down to the river and along (both sides have paths). I have seen 139 species of bird in this way over the years.
Helpful links
If you want to identify a bird you’ve seen, the RSPB has a great guide that might be useful:
Identifying exactly which bird you just heard isn’t easy. The guide below might help:
If you have any questions about the birds of Hob Hey Wood, either post the question on our facebook page or email hobheywood@gmail.com.
A full list of the birds seen in and around Hob Hey Wood can be found in the documents section of this website.
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