The brief glimpses of sunshine had gone by the time I got out this afternoon, and the visit was a much quieter one than of late! I made a trip to Migrant Alley first off, to try to photo a YELLOWHAMMER, half a dozen flew from the tall hedge before I even got anywhere near for a photo, i'll keep trying though. Whilst there, I noted 3 SKYLARK out in the sheep pasture, and a KESTREL hunting over one of the tatty hedgerows.

Crossing the Tree Nursery, there were at least 24 MEADOW PIPITS flushing up and dropping down, hard to count them! Other than that it was down to BLACKBIRDS, DUNNOCKS and ROBINS with a couple of MAGPIES. I peaked through the hedgerow, over to the Pub Field, and saw the now regular flock of 40-50 BLACK HEADED GULLS were there but nothing with them today.

Over at the lakes, the ornamental lake there was empty. The adjacent main lake however had 24 MALLARDS, a CORMORANT and 6 MOORHEN, the other, smaller lake, had just 4 Mallard and 2 Moorhens, so no exciting surprises here today!  A quick look around the lakeside vegetation and the edge of the Scrubby Woods was good for TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH and COAL TIT, much as I would expect, while at the nearby house ( that owns the main lake) the garden feeders were suffering the same fate as mine, a SPARROWHAWK sitting in the trees waiting for a customer on the sunflower hearts!

It seems ages since last weekends full patch walk, so i'm looking forward to tomorrows, where I can hopefully add a new species for the month, the current tally of 62 is the fourth best November total, still 2 behind the third best, and 6 behind the record  :-) Kingfisher and Common Gull will be the most likely additions now.

Photo opportunities were few, and in the light, not really worth the effort, as you can see by this Meadow Pipit photo.

Meadow Pipit

So for a treat today i'll put up some photo's of last weekends garden visitor the Nuthatch  :-)

Nuthatch

Nuthatch

Nuthatch

A much brighter afternoon, with some sunny spells, making it feel quite warm, enabled an enjoyable patch visit, well most of it enjoyable as you'll see!

I set off along Ashes lane and through the Tree Nursery to get to the lakes, I didn't see a great deal in the Tree Nursery, just a GREEN WOODPECKER and the KESTREL up hunting. Looking over the boundary hedge at the Pub Field I saw at least 60 BLACK HEADED GULLS, which suddenly took to the air, the culprit for their panic was a large female SPARROWHAWK going over.

I arrived at the lakes, not expecting anything at all after yesterdays shooting incident, and sure enough the ornamental lake was completely empty, the walk to the main lake takes just a minute, and on arriving there I scanned the lake and was very surprised to see a superb male GOOSANDER (62), what stunning birds these are!  This is only the second time Goosander have been recorded here in November, the other record was of a female last November, seen on the 12th and 13th. There were unsurprisingly fewer MALLARD about, and only two MOORHEN were seen. After the Goosander was flushed off by a noisy pair of rather corpulent ladies in the adjacent horse paddock ( now the leaves have gone there is little cover from this area)

Anyway, I lost interest at the lake area,  :-)   and decided to go over to Migrant Alley and see what was on the wheat grain I have put down, I was disappointed to see just 2 YELLOWHAMMERS fly off when i arrived, but I was more than happy at hearing CROSSBILLS in the sky! I looked frantically up into the blue, and was well rewarded with my best ever views of this species as four flew low over, I could even see the red colouring on the lead male bird , brilliant! I hung around until the light started to go, and saw a couple of SKYLARK and a MEADOW PIPIT go over, plus a LITTLE OWL called from the nearby Greenhouse Copse, also, nice to see, was a flock of 24 LAPWING heading over and dropping onto the Pub Field. The last birds seen were the flock of 30-40 LINNETS, heading to roost at the Tree Nursery.

Goosander - superb! As you can see i had to shoot through the bankside vegetation, making for a difficult photo  :-)

Goosander

Some of the Pre -roost Linnets