This morning saw a hard frost, but with little wind and wall to wall sunshine, it felt very springlike once I got moving  :-)

I visited Migrant Alley first off this morning, where the flock of 50-60 BLACK HEADED GULLS were again present, plus, again, there were at least 3 COMMON GULLS and a lone MEDITERRANEAN GULL with them, the only HERRING GULLS seen were flyovers. The adjacent Greenhouse Grounds had a small flock of half a dozen SISKIN in the Alders and the female KESTREL was hunting up nearby.

Obliging female Siskin in the Alders.

 This ROBIN sat very photogenically on a nearby frosty fence post, watching me watch the Siskin!

At 09:00hrs I meet up with fellow Kent Birder and photographer, Mike Hook, who I showed around my patch, we spent much time chatting away, so didn't record all that we might have done, but he got to see his first LESSER REDPOLLS, SISKIN and BULLFINCH of the year, but our hopes of a Goosander on the lakes was thwarted by the fact they were frozen over!

The FIELDFARES / REDWINGS and STARLINGS continue to move back and forth from the sheep pasture at  Migrant Alley to the Ashes Lane Fields, where just one MEADOW PIPIT was seen today, we also had good views of a BUZZARD as it soared up in the blue winter sky.

Later in the morning, we had a bit of a photo session at my garden feeders, where Mike filled his boots with images of the likes of Lesser redpoll, Siskin, LONG TAILED TITS and NUTHATCH, I'll post my efforts, that I took after Mike had left on future posts  :-)

Thanks Mike for your company, it made a nice change for me!

A chilly North wind blew this morning, but the suns strength was also felt when it occasionally showed.

I got round for a full patch walk today, when during the four hour trek, a total of 44 bird species were found, I didn't find the likes of Lesser Redpoll, Siskin or Pheasant, when they could of been expected, especially as the former two species were at my garden feeders this afternoon.

Nothing was added to the month or year lists, it was a generally average type visit, apart from the MUTE SWAN pair that are still present on the ornamental lake. I was pleased to see five species of Gull out on the pasture at Migrant Alley, BLACK HEADED, HERRING, LESSER BLACK BACKED, COMMON and best of all 2 MEDITERRANEAN GULLS, they were all flushed up from time to time for one reason or another, one of those being a low flying BUZZARD.

The KESTREL pair were seen chasing each other about around the Greenhouse Grounds and the FIELDFARE / REDWING / STARLING flock had scattered themselves around just about every available field, hard to count how many of each, but 200-300 birds in all i'd estimate.

All the expected woodland species turned out today - BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, CHAFFINCH, GREENFINCH, GOLDFINCH, STOCK DOVE, JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GREEN WOODPECKER etc....

Just one noteworthy flyover was had today, that being a GREY HERON.

Later this afternoon I tried again to get some garden bird images to brighten the blog posts, but the light was intermittent, making photography difficult, here's what I captured though  :-)

Greenfinch

Long Tailed Tit

This WREN had just finished bathing  :-)

This Blue Tit thought about a bath, but decided not to!

The dozen or so LESSER REDPOLL are still stuffing themselves on the sunflower hearts

They see off the much bigger Greenfinches and Chaffinches