On safari later than anticipated

The Safari started early this morning emptying the moth trap which was rather wet, from heavy overnight dew. Only two Hebrew Characters to report :-(

It did go quite chilly last night while we were having a good old gawp at Saturn in the clear conditions. A really brilliant view, even Wifey was impressed. At the time of riting this rubbish there is heavy cloud cover, let's hope it clears so we can try to get a pic or two...also need to check if we can see the gap between the inner and outer rings known as the Cassini Division. The rings are only between a hardly credible 5m and 30m deep and yet easy to see with the scope even though Saturn is about 830 million miles from Earth.

We faffed around at home far too long an didn't get out until nearly lunchtime so decided to go to one of the local farmland feeding stations to look across the fields for Brown Hares and Roe Deer and perhaps that invisible Hooded Crow. A couple of photographers had the feeders staked out so we drove past them to the gate where we saw naff all apart from of a very high soaring Buzzard which did a bit of display flight-ing

So cutting our losses w headed to the nature reserve. The lovely spring sunshine had gone and a cool wind was picking up. Not a lot was about although we did find a Goldcrest (MMLNR #72).

The Snake's Head Fritillaries in one of the small meadow areas were just coming in to flower, a sure sign of spring, plenty of Cowslips here too.

The feeders were busy with the usual stuff but no Siskins or Brambling today.

Great Tit

Blue Tit & male Reed Bunting

Reed Bunting

The walk round the rest of the reserve only gave us a few Bumble Bees and a Small Tortoiseshell butterfly. No Chiffchaffs and no Sand Martins.
A Carrion Crow in the garden (recording area) brought the garden total to 25.

Where to next? Back to work tomorrow so Patch 2 will be back in play
In the meantime let us know who spent too much time faffing around i n your outback.