Saturday 10 March

A male Reed Bunting briefly in my small garden was my first here this year.

Mid-morning and a pair of Peregrine were near Cardington, then I went searching for Tree Sparrows and found 3, one photographed.

Late morning, Jim Gurney and I sauntered around Octagon Farm and Meadow Lane GP's etc....... 166 Golden Plover at OFm and the Pinkfoot and 5 Gypos at the latter site [thanks for the recent texts re these DJO].

Early afternoon at the new pools near Marsh Leys r'bout brought a Little Egret, 2 pair Grey Partridges, 8 Linnets, some Yellowhammers and Mipits.

I then nipped over to Marston STW to join Neil and Phil and saw the very drab Chiffchaff that Neil had found the previous week which he tells me has an odd song - probably rusty from the recent weather.

Back home for a late lunch and some work on my moth trap then off later afternoon to the roosts, visiting Brogboro; Lake from 5.05 until 5.45 then Stewartby Lake from 5.52 'til 6.30.

39 Goldeneye were at Brogboro' Lake along with the 4 Scaup (2m2f) together still. L B Backs maxed at 71 and there was a first winter Herring Gull alongside a second-year Yellow-legged Gull - the latter a Beds year tick for me but both birds soon flew off.

I was surprised by the number of large gulls at Stewartby = most I've seen there for weeks and weeks....... 189 Lesser Black-backs, vast majority adults as at BL, were my highest count and were accompanied by at least 7 Herring Gulls tho' one seen in the very late gloom might perhaps have been a YLG I'd seen briefly in flight earlier - not countable tho'. The gulls were very tightly packed for some odd reason and looked unsettled throughout. A second-winter Great Black-back was my first of that species in Beds since the freeze up four weeks ago. My third Peregrine sighting of the day was sat on one of the Stewartby Chimneys for a while just after 6.00pm.

It was good mammal day too....... A Wood Mouse glimpsed in my garden this morning was followed by Grey Squirrel and , of course, Rabbits were commonly seen during the day. A Brown Hare and a C W Deer were in the field south of the Brog Lake watchpoint and my first Pipistrelle sp of the year was fluttering along at the Stew Lake watchpoint around 6.15. Star of the day tho' was the Weasel seen carrying a presumed Bank Vole by the Stew Lake circular path near the stream and Marston STW. Both Neil Wright and I ran off some photos after Phil drew our attention to its presence.

Martin J Palmer