Friday February 26

Cloudy with a light south-easterly breeze.

After yesterday's effort I was keen to try to see some Redpolls in flat light conditions, so this afternoon I decided to take advantage of the gathering cloud by heading back to the patch for an hour's worth of brownie points.

I headed straight for Stapenhill Wood, but after thirty minutes of gathering gloom I had only seen six Lesser Redpolls. The light was getting worse and the birds were somewhere else, so I abandoned the plan and made for the flash field.

There was little change from yesterday, now 46 Teal, one Green Sandpiper, three Snipe, and the Redshank, which was at least now on the nearest flash.

Redshank

I walked back via the pool, noticing that there had been an arrival of Stonechats, two males and a female.

So not much on offer, but at least the visit didn't cost me anything.

Now where's that ironing?