Another day out

The Safari was out in the garden sat in the vis mig seat a bit earlier this morning.

2 oktas of cloud - all from aeroplanes!!! Hope none of you missed the IPCC climate report yesterday - even more damning than the State of Nature report.

10mph ENE

10C @ 08.00

We had an hour's watching

Meadow Pipit 39 - largest flock 7

Greenfinch 4

'alba' Wagtail 2

Pink Footed Geese 40N

Lesser Redpoll 14 in one flock; no-one else is reporting these and they appeared low behind the garage with a couple of Meadow Pipits but we're sure the little buzzing call was this species. LATE EDIT - ONE here

The once a gain we were kindly driven round to the nature reserve by CR.

We scanned the reed edge where we'd seen the Snipe the other day in the vain hope of a Jack Snipe, neither were there but in amongst the Teal was a Spotted Redshank (178; MMLNR 107), a good find as they are less than annual here.

Not the best of pics but we weren't expecting the skein of Canada Geese that flew over to flush it.

The small flock of feral Barnacle Geese from the zoo dropped in for a while looking very smart in the low early sun. Above them a Kestrel hovered before settling in a small Hawthorn bush.

There was an almost continuous stream of Meadow Pipits, we didn't count them but would guess at well over 500. In the mix were over 100 'alba' Wagtails, the best part of 50-75 Swallows, many Skylarks, and a few Chaffinches. No Grey Wagtails that we haven't seen at the site yet this year though.

Below us the Water Rail didn't show and the Cetti's Warbler invisibly sang a bit of sub-song from time to time but we did get a mammal year tick when a Brown Rat swam across the gap.

Another quality bird whizzed through, a Merlin on its way south but we missed the Peregrine that TS saw taking a Feral Pigeon from the flock feeding in the fields to the east.

A wander down the east embankment gave us little more than another male Cetti's Warbler sub-songing but when we got to the bridge over the outfall CR said "look there, bottom step", flamin Nora a Grey Wagtail (MMLNR #108), when did that sneak in?

So yet another very enjoyable short session at this superb small but almost perfectly formed reserve; many thanks to CR for taking us and providing the pics.

Where to next? More vis migging at Base Camp, perhaps for most of the morning tomorrow.

In the meantime let us know who's splashing across the gaps in your outback.

EDIT - a Glossy Ibis turned up mid-afternoon, not totally sure this isn't the first one here since 1859, unfortunately we were with Wifey and Frank at the northern estuary watching a seawards drifting turtle murdering Helium balloon putting about 1000 Pink Footed Geese to flight.