Good day - poor pics

The Safari had a trial run watch from the bedroom window in advance of the RSPB's annual Big Garden Birdwatch which takes place in a fortnight, worth signing up for as it's one of the biggest pieces of 'citizen science' in the world. If you've never done it before it's very easy and only takes an hour - unless you have more than one garden of course! Our watch today didn't last an hour but we had a good selection of garden birds. A Carrion Crow (10) was heard so that can go on the garden list, a Collared Dove (11) almost flew in to the window but veered off at the last minute when it saw us that can go on the list now as we're not counting species 'seen' by Stealth-cam. A small party of tits had the usual Blue and Great Tits and we're not sure if we didn't see a Coal Tit flash through but a couple of Long Tailed Tits (12) were a very welcome sight on the feeder.

So off we went to the nature reserve to get set up for this weeks Long Eared Owl walk. News came in from the Rangers that they weren't where they were yesterday so we tried their other favourite perch and fortunately found them straight away. There were already several birders on site who hadn't been able to locate them and the walk was very well attended.

As we were watching a bird we've never seen at the nature reserve before, ever, flew over screeching - a Ring Necked Parakeet (87, 66) but there wasn't much else in the vicinity.  

Once all the owl watchers had had their fill we went round to have a look at the water and see if the Pintails from yesterday were still on site. As soon as we brought the Land Rover to a stop we saw the Little Egret on the scrape.

All the usual suspects were present but no Pintails and no Iceland Gull today either, not many gulls at all to be fair.

The light was cack all day and then it started snowing.

He's a selection of what was about.

Female Pochard

Going back

Female Mallard dabbling

At the Feeding Station the chap we sat down next to had a whopping great lens that only just fitted through the viewing window. The absence of a tripod with this set up had us guessing (fortunately correctly) that it was fellow Flickr'r BD

It's always good to put a face to a name and email contact you've known for ages.

The Feeding Station was busy with theusual 'garden' stuff. A Great Spotted Woodpecker (MMNLR #67) flew overhead as we approached but it was a while before it came back for some scram. By now it was almost dark but still only early afternoon so apologies for the very dodgy pics; we're sure you'll see far better on BD's Flickr site.

Two Coal Tits nipped in and out

dodging the many Blue Tits

Only two Reed Buntings were seen in there today, a female and then a male, not quite the several that were about on our last visit.

A lorra lorra 'Lotties' - Long Tailed Tits (68) - were on the feeders, at least a dozen but they were flitting around from one feeder to another so quickly we couldn't get an accurate count.

'

There's nine in the frame here with two more on the peanuts next door and another one or two flitted off in to the scrub.

We took BD round to show him the owls and on the way collected another small entourage of would be owl spotters. Again lots of happy faces when they connected but we'd have rather heard the Bullfinch - are they/it still on site? The Waxwing that was seen the other day wouldn't have gone amiss either - but you can't have everything.

In the end Frank was getting a bit stiff, the damp weather perhaps making his old re-engineered bones ache, so we bundled him back in to the Land Rover and headed off back to Base Camp to throw a few logs in Little Bertha.

As we are putting fingers to keyboard a layer of snow has coated the cars parked in the street outside.
Where to next? Back to Patch 2 tomorrow, wonder if the weather will allow us to see anything.

In the meantime let us know if there's enough of the white stuff in your outback to build a snowman...that might not apply to Aussie Glen!