A small party braved the cold wind. 2 Little Egrets and 9 Mute Swan on the main lake to begin with and to end with. Fingers held 9 Little Grebe, 2 male Tufted, 2 Shoveler (that flew off to join the other 15 on the main lake), just 1 pair of Gadwall and two new (unringed) Mute Swans that didn't seem interested in the three, still grey, cygnets. Deposed Mum, we presume, had hopped over to the main lake. 9 Fieldfare flew over NW. No Chiff or Water Rail heard, just Robins, Chaffinch & tits.
Round the main lake we failed to locate one of the Egrets - it had moved before we got there. From the hide, 28 Cormorant, over 50 GC Grebe, 1 male Pochard, the 2 Tufted & 17 Shoveler (+1 female Pintail -DB). Plenty of Common & Black-headed Gulls, some of the latter starting to get their black heads! [Looks like a faint collar] 2 Kingfisher flew along the middle (closed) section and perched. The "experts" could pick them out easily, but it took some time for the "beginners" to find them because of the cryptic colouration against the leaves and branches. This is always difficult at a distance. [We all had 8x binos, so it wasn't a case of better optics]
Along the Leat, a Green and a Gt.Spotted Woodpecker were picked up on call. On to the Kramer hide where there were 4 Herons to be joined by a 5th. The Crows were 'playing on the wind' when they were not feeding on Kingsmead. A single Redwing, 3 more Fieldfare & a pair of Bullfinch before reaching the "dead seat" where we managed to catch up with the 7 Teal that we had been hearing as we walked along the "Long Hedge". The Treecreeper eluded us.
The next walk - Sunday 23rd December, 09:00 at VC.
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