Sunday November 11

It was back to the patch this morning, where I was joined by Dave. We headed to the south end and soon located at least four Bramblings. Sadly, my attempts to secure a decent photograph were laughably inept. There are still disturbingly few Finches about, just seven Linnets and about a dozen Chaffinches. Back at the copse by the farm we had good views of a pair of Marsh Tits, but from this somewhat underwhelming start the morning actually got worse.

We failed to flush any Snipe in front of the main pool where the only birds in residence were a handful of Mallard and the pair of Mute Swans.

We met up with John Yardley, and the reason for the lack of wildfowl soon became clear as he gloomily explained that three youngsters had been careering around on a quadbike from when he arrived. He had seen flocks of Geese and Ducks heading away as fast as they could manage.

This visit was just about as bad as it gets.