Little About!

One Less Water Vole!

A week on from my last post and despite high hopes very little new on offer around the patch. My birding depression was not helped either by an email I received from my mate Derek Killby in Vancouver, Canada this morning. This read like a who's who of species, the best being 28 Snowy Owls he came across at Boundary Bay, Delta, a place I've visited several times over previous years.

Brandon Marsh over the past several days has been reasonably quiet too, the exception being Tuesday when I managed my best view thus far this winter of a Bittern, when one took flight from the reeds in front of big hide. Several arse end images the best I could muster as the bird flew across towards Newlands, catching me completely by surprise.

On the same morning I witnessed first hand the demise of one of the recently released Water Voles, when I was stunned to see a Heron pluck one from the grass at Carlton Hide. Still plenty of winter visitors on offer though, with several good flocks of Lesser Redpoll, Siskin, Fieldfare and Redwing. The daily visit of Golden Plover, numbers usually ranging from 30 to a very healthy 175 continues, although today's visit only saw a count of 9.

Closer to home a tour of the marina and surrounding areas this morning didn't manage any surprises, although a count of 8 Skylark in the adjacent field was welcome. Also recorded were: 6 Red-legged Partridge, 4 Yellowhammer, 32 Goldfinch, 38 Linnet, 11 Tree Sparrow, 2 Bullfinch ♂♀, 1 Green Woodpecker, 2 Kestrel and a lone Buzzard.

Finally, I've now started to upload a few of my photographs onto Flickr and these can be accessed by clicking the link on the header bar above labelled 'My New Photostream'.