An early morning visit to Brandon to start with on a totally bitter day, good job I'd opted for my thermals!By the time I arrived at East Marsh Pool for coffee I'd listed Bullfinch, actually my 1st bird of the day, plus Cettis Warbler, Pied Wagtail, the usual Blue, Great & Long Tailed Tits and on route through New Hare Covert I'd also heard a couple of Greenshank calling. Another underrated bird in my opinion that seems to have done extremely well at Brandon this summer is the Jay, a pleasure to see and of course at this time of year nearly always with an acorn in it's mouth ready to bury, I recorded 8 today!
The Pool yielded nothing out of the ordinary and no sign of the Black Tailed Godwit seen over the last few days. However, Teal Pool had the 2 Greenshank I'd heard earlier and a visit to the Carlton Hide produced Water Rail, Kingfisher and Sparrowhawk.
I thought it was about time that I made a real effort to locate Siskin, Fieldfare and Redwing on the reserve and so visited several locations where I knew the first birds of this autumn might be. No luck with Siskin but I did manage 3 pockets of Fieldfare over flying the reserve 4, 3 and 15 respective and it's possible that several of the 15 may have been Redwing, but no doubt the bulk were definitely Fieldfare (library Picture), which goes down as my bird of the day!
After Brandon I dropped in at Napton Reservoir and was shocked by the further devastation of the vegetation around the parking area. This site is being brutally managed by the Environment Agency who should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves! I stood forlorn on the windswept bank for several minutes but did manage, 4 Great Crested Grebe, Cettis Warbler, Little Grebe, Kestrel and a lone Gadwall among the many Coot. A number of Black Headed Gulls, 3 Tufted Duck and a family of 5 Mute Swan were also present.
Having returned to the marina furious with what I'd seen at Napton I decided to have a walk around the perimeter to calm myself down before the rain set in. I was delighted to see that we still have Tree Sparrow on site, plus a Yellowhammer and Reed Bunting managed to send me back aboard somewhat cheered!
