Patchwork Challenge - Longham Lakes Visit 5

I had a new camera turn up this week, so the weather has been absolutely terrible. I went out anyway, but I am massively unhappy with the quality of what I took on such an overcast day. Most of the issues was that I had it set up completely wrong, so don't be surprised by the poor quality of the images today.

Scanning the carpark yielded Great Tits, but not a lot else. I could hear plenty of birds around, but my id skills are pretty poor and it was far too cold to simply hang around in one place.

Moving to the north lake I was rewarded with a fair sized flock of Pochards, which must have numbered around 15 birds, far more than I saw last time. Carrion Crows and Magpies were in the adjoining fields and there were plenty of Blackbirds and Robins about too. I've still yet to see any House Sparrows, but there was a small number of Goldfinches and Greenfinches flying about.

The back fields were pretty quiet, with just Mute Swans, Herring Gulls and Black-Headed Gulls about. Heading off one of the footpaths I saw a Mistle Thruish skulking around in the undergrowth, but it soon flew off. I had better luck in one of the adjoining fields due to a Common Gull which was grazing with some Black-Headed Gulls.

A Common Gull, out for a stroll.

Walking along the back of the lake rewarded me with Long-Tailed Tits, Blue Tits and another Goldcrest. A couple of Cormorant were fishing and there was a lone Little Egret, which ended up flying over to the south lake.

The south lake was very quiet, with very little on the small island about from Tufted Ducks and Mallards. There were a few Great Crested Grebes and Little Grebes swimming about, but many of the ducks were nowhere to be see. The wood at the back of South Lake was bursting with song, but I struggled to identify anything other than a Great Tit. I did manage to see a lone Stock Dove though, which gave me my second new birds of the day. Oh and while I remember there was a Dunnock skulking around in one of the hedgerows too. There were a lot of Herring Gulls on the south lake and one Lesser Black-Backed Gull, which was another new bird for the patch.

Lesser Black Backed Gull in the foreground.

As I was walking back, I'm convinced I saw a female Reed Bunting but as I couldn't fairly ID it I'm not including it. One thing I do remember is that the back fields had a lot of Cormorants in them. I typically see these birds resting in the pylons there, but never on the actual ground.

That gives me a total of 46 registered birds for the patch now. Hopefully my fellow patcher Martin hasn't seen any new yet :P

Black-Headed Gull
Blackbird
Blue Tit
Carrion Crow
Cormorant
Coot
Dunnock
Gadwell
Goldfinch
Goldcrest
Great Crested Grebe
Greenfinch
Great Tit
Herring Gull
Jackdaw
Kestrel
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Long-Tailed Tit
Magpie
Mallard
Mistle Thrush
Mute Swan
Rrobin
Pochard
Tufted Duck
Wigeon
Wood Pigeon
Wren