A very pleasant year tick today at a local patch. Who said December birding was tough!
I looked at my computer at 13:00 and thought I'd not made any plans for my lunch hour, I had no jobs/chores/xmas/family to think of, so thought I'd give Linford a bash. Met old timer Ray Stroud walking back into the the car park from the reserve, after a quick chat of 'nothing about' and 'someone had defecated on the bench in the bird hide at Willen' (which was nice!) I plodded on regardless. First stop a scan of Swans Way from the Willow tree...within seconds I was watching a Short-eared Owl quartering along the road and ranging towards the canal. Cracking sight - forgotten how long the wings were. Did the ring round and through Nik (on his works xmas lunch) had a conference call with Ray to get him back on the reserve as he'd walked off to get the bus.
So I carried on into the reserve and soon met the noisy Siskin flock flying over head, estimated about 60 now (from what I could see). Then detoured back to Near Hide - {oh for a Bittern standing on the frozen ice} but no joy, the unfrozen patch was a bit bigger and Wigeon had replaced Teal as the most numerous wildfowl. A single female Goldeneye the pick. On leaving the hide a pair of Bullfinch showed really well with the male looking stunning in the December gloom.
Met Rob eager for his SEO tick in the car park as I was leaving. An hour later he'd text it was still there at 15:00. Job done.
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