Heavy rain this morning had me getting a lift in to work, but the rain had cleared by the time I left for home early this afternoon, leaving a legacy of dark and threatening clouds for my afternoon patch visit, so the camera had another day off!

I went over to the Lakes via the Small Holding and Wet Woods, the Small Holding had a mixed feeding flock moving through, mostly LONG TAILED TITS, but with them there was also a TREECREEPER, a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and one of the species I had hoped for this afternoon, a GOLDCREST (49). The other species I had hoped for this afternoon was a Songthush, but not one was seen in the two hours I was out - unusual!

In the Wet Woods, only the songs of  ROBIN and WREN were evident, also a KESTREL that flew along the edge of the woods and out into a large garden. I hope we get some of that heavy rain promised to us, the woods needs a good deluge to fill the pits up, then I might get a Teal visiting here :-)

There wasn't any Teal on the lakes today, more's the pity, just MALLARDS and MOORHENS again, but at least there was a CORMORANT there this afternoon, a bit of a variation  :-)  A good look for a Songthrush, in the Scrubby Woods was a failure, as I said earlier, in fact the only thrush species seen was a BLACKBIRD, not much else was about here either, more Robins, Wrens, DUNNOCKS and a distant calling BULLFINCH. I left to visit the Tree Nursery with the light beginning to fail, ( it was only 3 O'clock!!), where I walked the lines of shrubs, this is where I was sure a Songthrush would fly out, but only Dunnocks, Wrens, Robins, and Blackbirds did  :-(

I just had enough light left for a quick circuit of Migrant Alley, it was bit livlier here than of late, with 6 YELLOWHAMMER, and 2 CHAFFINCH trying to hide in a sparse hedgerow,  4 PIED WAGTAIL were on one the paddocks, and the first LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL (50) for the month that flew over was the 50th species for November, but no further additions were made to the months list. By four o'clock it was all but dark, so with nothing more to see or hear apart from the singing Robin, and the ''chinking'' of Blackbirds I had to call it a day.

Birding was very limited today, I heard a LITTLE OWL (48) calling from one of the large gardens behind my house as I left for work at 06:45, then the rain came, so the hurried walk in to work wasn't really conducive to birding!

More rain this afternoon, some of it in heavy bursts, kept me indoors :-(  So plan  'B'  was activated, that is to watch the garden feeders. It all started well, with visits from GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, NUTHATCH, WOODPIGEON, a dozen GOLDFINCH and a welcome increase in GREENFINCH, with 6 on the Sunflower hearts. A busy group of 4 LONG TAILED TITS breezed through, and a ROBIN picked off large pieces of the suet block, then with a whir of wings, and puff of feathers, the SPARROWHAWK dropped like an arrow from the leylandi tree at the back of the garden, taking another Goldfinch, plan  'B' came to an abrupt end! Nothing but a few brave BLUE and GREAT TITS ventured in after that, and they only stayed long enough to grab a seed and go!

Looks like i'll have to suspend feeding once the feeders have been emptied, it's getting too easy for the Sprawk now. Also it's not good that it keeps catching the same species, out in the woods many varieties of bird would be taken, with no real effect on populations, but the Gold and Greenfinch numbers will start to take at hit around here if I let it go on.

So that was it for today, a bit of a write off! Tomorrows weather looks to be just as bad, but i'll have to wait and see.