Big Waters Wander

I arrived at Big Waters early on Sunday about 07.45 for an early wander round hoping to spot something but it seems all our feathered friends didn't have the same idea as me and were tucked up in the warm somewhere.  Even the ducks on the pond were in 2 groups hiding behind the island in an attemp to get out of the wind.  Not a Teal in sight either.  I was entertained for a short while by a Charm of Goldfinches then got down to a bit of counting, as the birds on the pond had been disturbed by something I couldn't see and had had come a bit closer to the public end.  This unfortunately didn't take too long and the 3 Pochard, 4 Tufted, 68 Wigeon, 6 Mute Swans, 8 Cormorant, 18 Coot, 8 Mallard were all I could make out.  Bumped into Graeme B but he wasn't doing the walk today due to prior commitments and he headed off to the hides.  Keith, Alan J and Ian D arrived and Alan regaled me of the birds I had missed during the week all of which would have been year ticks, they were Redshank, Great Crested Grebe, Pied Wagtail, Grey Wagtail and Crossbill.  Off we went on the walk but spotting LBBs was harder than getting 3 numbers up on the Lottery lately and it was bloody freezing so we did the short walk and ended up back at the hides where the numbers of the birds had increased but not by a great lot.  Alan put some food out and immediately the Feeding Station was full including Willow Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Reed Bunting, Tree Sparrows and all the usual suspects.  Then the bird of the day was spotted, a Drake Pintail, keeping close to the reeds on the new scrape.  Didn't stay too long after that so an early bath was had

Some pictures from the day

Quite a few Wigeon about

Picnic Table hogging Robins 

Fascinating the way the water freezes when there is a strong wind

One of the Willow Tits tail feathers has turned white.  Is this common ? 

 The same Willow Tit and you can just make the white tail feather out

Tree Sparrow - there seemed to be quite a few around today

Stood watching this Kestrel for a while waiting for it to fly off for a couple of flight shots but it just flapped its wings a couple of times. 

Then when I turned away and headed to the car some guy came up the path between the woods and field and it lifted and all I managed was the following shot