Here's the back end of a Buzzard as it flew away.
The car park was pretty empty and I've still been unable to find any House Sparrows. I thought I saw some on a tree driving in, but upon returning they had long flown.
Moving to north lake I could see the usual suspects and there were a large number of Tufted Duck. The Pochard on the other hand were nowhere to be seen. I caught the back end of a buzzard in one of the hampreston fields, spotted several coot and saw the old greenfinch and goldfinch but it was pretty slim pickings all around.
Not the greatest shot of a Chiffchaff, but it will do.
Upon reaching the back of the north lake I hopped the stile hoping to find gulls in the field but it was completely empty, the first time that's happened. It wasn't too bad though as around 6 Chaffinch were hanging around the small coppice found at the end of the walkway between the two lakes. I saw numerous Tits, including Great, Blue and Long-Tailed Tits and also robins, blackbirds and dunnocks.
A few Long-Tailed Tits were hanging around and proving difficult to take photos of.
Upon moving to the other lake it became obvious where all the Pochard were. In fact there were about 20 Pochard all in and at least 15 Shoveler which had been hiding in the reeds. I saw no teal at all though, although Mallards and Gadwell were in the adjacent field.
The Shovelers and Pochards were happy to hang out together.
As I travelled around the lake I soon realised where all the gulls were! There must have been at least 200, probably more gulls on the lake and they mainly appeared to be Black Headeds. Heeding Martin's advice I spent a fair while scanning them and was rewarded with some Mediterranean's which was my one new bird for the week.
You can tell the Mediterranean Gulls as they have no black tips on the wings.
There were numerous Little Egret, but I didn't see a single Grey Heron. Moorhen's continue to elude me too, which makes me wonder whether they are perhaps seasonal here. I spied several Herring Gulls on the lake too, as well as more Tufted Ducks, Great Creasted Grebes and a small number of Little Grebes. Carrion Crows, Magpies and Jackdaws were abundant, but I couldn't see any Rooks. I'm yet to see Jay too, but that's not surprising as I've never seen them in the two odd years I've been visiting.
A couple of very distant Little Egrets. I saw several more on the actual lake.
All in all it was a nice walk, but I'm hoping that as we move into March we're going to start seeing a few possible migrants (I saw Wheatear last year and Hobbys aren't unusual).
That puts me on a total of 47 birds, which isn't too shabby at all.
The backfields were rather quiet, with just Canada Geese, Greylag Geese and Mute Swans.
Here's all the birds I saw.
Black-Headed Gull (at least 250)
Blackbirds
Blue Tits
Buzzard
Canada Geese (around 20)
Carrion Crows
Chaffinch
Chiffchaff (about 5)
Coot (too many to count)
Cormorant
Dunnock
Gadwell
Goldfinch
Great Crested Grebe
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Greylag Geese
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Little Egret (4)
Little Grebe
Long-Tailed Tit (5)
Magpie
Mallard
Mediterranean Gull (3)
Mistle Thrush
Mute Swan
Pochard (about 20)
Robin
Shoveler (about 15)
Starling
Tufted Duck
Wood Pigeon
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