SHORT-EARED OWL still - MJP Diary Notes 12 February

Evenin' all !

Mid morning I spent half an hour at Woburn Road Wetlands ~ 7 Snipe, 5
Skylarks,1 Little Egret, 32 Wigeon, a Sparrowhawk but best were 4 Song
Thrushes together by a rail fence.

Jim Gurney rang me and I hastened over to Swiss Garden but two and
three-quarter hours later and I hadn't connected with his female Lesser
Spotted Woodpecker, nor his Kingfisher over the lake - good numbers of
seemingly all the small woodland birds tho' with Nuthatches, Treecreepers,
Goldcrests, Marsh Tit and the other four common tits all showing well as
well as both the larger woodpeckers.

Mid-afternoon I spent half an hour at the shelter by the feeders at The
Lodge - the banal souls who think it's ok to talk loudly standing outside
the shelter and/or banging their car doors eventually wore both my and the
patience of the initial glut of Siskins and Redpolls - At one time a dozen
or more of each were on the ground on my side of the rail fence and included
up to 7 Mealy Redpolls including two adult males and the orange-polled bird
recently mentioned by LGRE. The light was very dull and rather poor for
photography but I took a few more record shots. The interruptions tho'
eventually told and the great majority of the birds headed off not to return
by my departure

I then drove to Gypsy Lane, Broom - all three recent Smew were still present
on the west lake along with a couple of Shoveler and Wigeon. The east side
held a Ringed Plover, 7 more Shoveler, 8 Teal and 10 Gadwall as well as 5
Pied Wagtails.

From 3.40, I spent half an hour at Furzenhall Farm track, Biggleswade and
was well rewarded with very good close views of the recent Short-eared Owl
only about 100m from me at 3.55 and then a repeat performance at 4.05.

A brief look in at Willington toward dusk and in excess of 300 Barnacle
Geese were present in the westernmost of the sheep fields then, c4.45, I had
2 Little Egrets fly over the A603 at Cardington roundabout on my way home to
Kempston.

MJP