Sunday December 9

I was a bit late starting after a long evening entertaining friends, and so Dave had been kicking his heels for half an hour before I turned up. Compared to last thursday there were positive signs from the off.  Plenty of Starlings and Redwings were in evidence, and the first Tufted Duck for a while on the pool. The flash hosted 48 Teal, and I just missed a Wigeon which Dave spotted as it briefly flew with Mallards.

Later, 150 Lapwings flew over, but looked to be associating with fields to the west of the patch.

The real revelation was the south end. It looks as though tree planting may have started, and the disturbed muddy field contained about 100 Starlings, 175 Redwings, 60 Fieldfares, and 150 Chaffinches. With the latter were at least 10 Bramblings.



Brambling

 
  The Brambling in the photograph posed nicely on an isolated bush, which occasionally also contained several Lesser Redpolls. It was very difficult to work out the numbers of birds in this area, and I would regard the estimates as minimum figures.