RAIN!!

21/11/09
and thats what it dad for most of the day,the day started with a check of lickhill,at least 5 pheasant(3 male seen initially then 2 female) were in the goose(vismig) field:

again a quick check of the gull flock produced nothing but BHG's,a sparrowhalk flew low over the field,a 50c strong flock of goldfinch was in a large birch tree.

then at 08:52 a drake GOOSANDER flew upriver,remember im not usually lucky with this species at lickhill and this is only my 3rd lickhill record(although surely more have passed though),unfortunatly although i had quite close views i didnt get my camera up fast enough before it had flew over the field and was gone.....

we arrived at the earlswood job and after a quick check to make sure everything was ok,we turned back,the rain was just very,very bad.

so to upton,THEN

CRASH

bugger, somebody had crashed on the motorway and the traffic already started to build up(the crash only happened a minuite or 2 before),after a jolly good 45 mins of looking at bleak motorway verges and a cool helecoptor we were on our way:

look a cool helecoptor(in the end it flew off as the crash wasent that serious

(film not uploading,sorry)

so now with only at most an hours left untill dusk,and the rain hammering the front of the hide(bittern) only the north facing window was open,so only the open water was counted,a huge total of 38 pochard was scattered across the north side as was 59 shovelers,2 water rail were calling in front of the hide and another shown in the truily terrible light,even in this weather a cetti's was singing.a female reed bunting had a go at the feeders f0r a bit,100-200 lapwing kept flying backwards and forwards from the A38 field and the islands,also in the A38 was 40 curlew which then flew towards the flashes,after getting fed up with the wind and rain,we retreated back to the car and home,but on the way back along the path,there was ton's of thrush activity,quite a few redwings,fieldfares,blackbirds,song thrushes and a lone mistle thrush were feeding on the berrys,5 bullfinch were also feeding on the berrys,with its sad call, and what a way to describe the day,

truily a nasty day(although any birds that i dont see regularly away from upton is good in my book)

MB