Now we are entering march, my afternoon walks will slowly become more bias towards Migrant Alley and the surrounding fields, where early spring migrants are more likely to be encountered, and the visits to the lake area and wet woods become briefer, as the only early migrants to be picked up here will be the Chiffchaff, and Blackcap. Todays visit through the wet woods was very quiet, which surprised me, as it was a lovely sunny afternoon, I couldn't locate the feeding flock, but did find a couple of GOLDCREST and 3 GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS squabbling noisily over territories. At the lake area, I was disappointed to find that the Coot had not stayed, but that soon turned to sheer delight, for instead of a Coot, there were a pair of GOOSANDER (74) Yes! just what I needed to boost my morale, a year tick. The Male looked absolutley stunning in the sunshine, and I fired off a few distant photo's, but they do nothing for him! Feeling pleased with myself, I left the Goosanders in peace and went over to Migrant Alley, via the tree nursery, where all the remaining stock in one of the fields was being shredded through a big machine, so there was nothing to be seen there, apart from a MEADOW PIPIT, a species not seen yesterday. It flew in and alighted on an elder tree - Pipit in a tree - Tree pipit! might be a very early migrant, I can dream! However as I crept nearer to it and gave it a proper look I was disappointed, but it did give me some decent photo opportunities. Just before entering Migrant Alley another species not seen yesterday appeared - a KESTREL, it flew low over and landed on the cowling of a converted oasthouse. I sat on my horse jump once at migrant alley, and scanned the fields for a very early Wheatear, or maybe a Black Redstart, well, I suppose i am jumpimg the gun a bit! All I saw were, JACKDAWS, ROOKS, CARRION CROWS and STOCK DOVES and a Lone HERRING GULL that flew over. Oh well, I'll keep looking, it wont be long now, a good couple of hours were had and three more new species for the month, brings the 50 up.

Above and below are a couple of photo's of the Male GOOSANDER. What a handsome bird!

Below is the Meadow pipit. You can see the diagnostic long hindclaw in clearly.

The first full walk of a new month, and my usual bird census took place, a good total of almost 700 birds was counted, of 47 species, a flying start to March! The best March species count was of 65, achieved back in 2006, but with a combined March total of 76, surley I can pass that ?
The most numerous bird seen, as is quite often the case, was the WOODPIGEON, with 148, but a good total of 57 BLUE TITS were also seen, and in the wildbird crop a minimum 40 REED BUNTINGS were feeding with at least a dozen YELLOWHAMMER. Of the finch family just 3 SISKIN were seen, along with 20 GREENFINCH, 8 GOLDFINCH, 4 BULLFINCH and 24 CHAFFINCH, These species don't seem to flock together in any great number on my patch. The smaller birds seem to have survived the worst of winter, 17 WRENS and 7 GOLDCRESTS were all vocal, as were the 14 DUNNOCKS. The only birds that were a bit light in numbers were the thrush family. REDWING numbered 27, FIELDFARE just 6, SONGTHRUSH 8, MISTLE THRUSH 6 and BLACKBIRD 35. The highlight for me though was finding that a COOT had come to the lake! Excellent stuff, it was in the company of 10 CANADA GEESE, 2 GREYLAG GEESE, 12 MALLARD and 10 MOORHEN. Other species seen singly were SPARROWHAWK, LESSER BLACK BACK GULL, COAL TIT, TREECREEPER, JAY and a flyover REDPOLL, typically the latter was not recorded at all last month!

The day wasn't conducive for photography, but here's a couple of pics anyway.

Above: A male Sparrowhawk surveys his domain. Below is the bird of the day a Coot!