Saturday 27th October

A cold start this morning with a strong wind blowing, intitally from the NE then swinging around to come from the NW. I arrived before 7am and some of the Corvids were already out and about in a large group over the main lake. The main bulk of the roost left around 07:20.

A large raft of 66 Coots were up the NW corner of the main lake and another 12, with 18 Great Crested Grebes were over towards the east side.

Down at Fingers there were 3 Little Egrets still in the roost and they left a little after the Corvids.

Redwings, Fieldfares and Woodpigeons started coming through in small groups shortly after first light and the final totals, courtesy of DK, were:

481 Woodpigeons S
199 Redwings W
183 Fieldfares W
We also had 42 Starlings W.

From the south side of the main lake DK spotted 9 Pochards doing circuits of the main lake.

A nice end to the walk around the park was a single Goldcrest in the NW (Beefeater) corner and then 3 Lesser Redpolls shortly after, along the north side of the main lake.

So some nice birds around, hopefully some will hang around for tomorrows guided walk. Don't forget to put your clocks back 1 hour tonight and meet at the visitor centre at 9am (GMT). Wrap up warm, it looks like another cold start!
Here's a rather obscured picture of the Redpoll which did a great job of staying in cover after the cameras came out of the bags!

Lesser Redpoll