And then there were two

The Safari once again was thwarted by poor visibility this morning. We gave it a go but seeing more than a few hundred yards was always going to be a no-no. A few small flocks of Common Scoters and a Great Crested Grebe were all we could muster with the tide in.

A mid morning we saw that TP had written today's AFON advent blog about the Great Northern Diver - quality bird, good choice. So at lunchtime we had another go at Patch 2. Wouldn't it have been spooky if there was one out there? There wasn't, we reached our quota for this one at Patch 2 way back in April. 

Not even a Red Throated Diver today although there could have been hundreds of them if the heavy mist/light fog had lifted miraculously. There was however, a flock of gulls interested in something in the water that turned out to be a Grey Seal munching on a rather large fish and they were after the scraps. Difficult to see all the action in the waves but one of the gulls lifted off the water it turned out to be a Kittiwake, crikey they're slight compared to Herring Gulls. A Great Crested Grebe flew over the melee while a second was with some of the Common Scoters closer in.

On the beach there were a few gulls about the same number of Oystercatchers and a Bar Tailed Godwit. 

Before going home we had a site to visit and check over with reptile guru RL. We did our business walk round then had a look at the little nature reserve on site which has a big pond, a little pond and a dry-ish pond. In the corner of the big pond stood three trees of a particular kind of interest to more than naturalists and arboriculturalists at this time of year. Well there might have been three last week, there's only two now and by this time next week even they might have mysteriously disappeared too. Well, it's only a nature reserve the seaon of the tidal wave of tat is more far more important than that - good job they're not native! 

A Goldcrest was heard in the properly native Hawthorn hedge on the walk back to the Land Rover in the swiftly gathering gloom.

Nothing on the stealth-cam for you again this evening.

Where to next? Wild weather in store so not sure what might be occuring but we do have Monday off  too.

In the meantime let us know who's been beavering away at the woodwork in your outback.