After being out on business for 3 days I was keen to get down to the patch and arrived in the car park field around 15:00. We have had a lot of rain and Sandford Lane had water up to the middle of road near the hump back bridge, so I didn't even bother trying to go to Bittern Hide.
By now it was bright and barely a breeze, so I had high hopes of something interesting flying over, so I checked the Oak tree left of Lea Farm and straight away saw the Little Owl in the usual hole, my first since 5th April. It has probably been around all year, invisible til now, being that now the leaves were almost all gone.
Over the next hour I had 3-4 groups of Fieldfare, totaling about 90, 34 being the largest flock, a flock of 100 Redwing, c40 Greenfinch, the first 2 Lesser Redpoll of the Autumn over towards Lavell's probably to roost, 1 Buzzard settled on a distant vent, numerous Red Kites heading to an unknown roost, 1 Cetti's calling at the back of Lavell's, 1 Pheasant that walked pretty much past me, Great Spot and Green Woodpecker, Goldcrest, Bullfinch and a bunch of finch Sp flying about to the West and North.
I rarely linger at the bottom of the car park at this time, so it was quite interesting to see masses of distant gulls heading West along the Thames towards Sonning/Henley Road pits, not that it was possible to distinguish species, just that many were larger.
It also felt as if one visited til dusk frequently, there could be a reasonable chance of picking up a Peregrine, a Merlin, or passing rarer goose. I'll try to do it again soon, but also want to get back to WSL to try for Bittern, we are overdue one.
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