16 October 2010

A bright sunny morning but rather cold with temp at 7c, very little wind of note, visit from 07.30 - 10.15.

The first birds of note where the groups of Fieldfares going over most of the morning, the first group contained just 4 with a single Redwing but by the end of the visit a total 65 had been seen all heading north west, Mute Swans are down to just 4 with a single on the boating lake and the family of 3 on the main lake, Tufted Ducks stand at a disappointing 67 with no Pochards which is unusual for this time of year, at last I managed to catch up with some of the ringed Coots seeing 5/6 of them, all the Great Crested Grebes were on the main lake with 8, just 3 Pied Wagtails were on the grass verge area, a female type Goldeneye is the first in of the winter, it was seen yesterday by Nick Smith and was still present this morning, 3 Lesser Black-backed Gulls were on the main lake, 6 Jackdaws flew over in two groups of 3 but nothing like the count of 80+ earlier in the week by Dave Kelsall, a single Starling was in one of the Fieldfare flocks over the old gas works and a single Grey Wagtail flew over here, a single Mistle Thrush was on the canal side of the main lake, back on the main lake and the 3 'Mick Balls' are still present, on the sewage works a single Bullfinch was heard as was a Willow Tit and finally at the top corner of the main lake near the top pool 1 possibly 2 Kingfishers and a Siskin was heard flying over.