Sunday October 12

The forecast fog did not form, and instead the day dawned sunny and still. A couple of messages on my phone from yesterday told me that John Chidwick had seen a Little Egret yesterday afternoon, but it had flown off, while Mike had located three Stonechats at Middle Spernal Pools, one of which was sporting a metal ring.

All to play for then. Dave was on site before me and I told him we needed to look out for Egrets.

This was the closest we got, one of three Grey Herons present today. A search of the area around Netherstead produced plenty of birds, but nothing unusual.

This Grey Wagtail pitched in and seemed to regard the stony edge of the track as a surrogate river-bed. As with last weekend there were plenty of Blackbirds (at least 15) and several Song Thrushes, but no Redwings yet. The summer visitors have just about gone, we managed a single singing Chiffchaff. There were fewer Meadow Pipits about, but they were replaced by an influx of 151 Starlings and 90 Linnets.

At the pool, about 50 Greylag Geese flew off, and only a pair of Mute Swans and a few Mallard appeared to be present. We decided to see how many Snipe we could kick out. The answer was 41 plus the first three Jack Snipe of the autumn. As usual my attempt to see any Jack Snipe on the ground before they were flushed was unsuccessful, and as I suspect this state of affairs will persist on any future flushes I am including a dreadful attempt at a photo of a flying bird to get the species onto my photo-year list.

98. Jack Snipe

This photograph fails the first rule I have imposed on myself, that the bird should be identifiable from the photograph. But what the hell.

The Flash was a big disappointment again, containing six Teal (which we had flushed from the pool), one Lapwing and two Green Sandpipers. We also heard (in my case) a very brief Kingfisher calling from the pools beyond the western hedge.

Back at the car the Starlings were lined up on telephone wires, hence the accurate count, and I finished with a picture of some of them in their smart winter plumage.