It's Raining Again!

I'd been wondering if the weather had forgotten how....

;)

On Boxing Day, the chief news from the Patch was the continued presence of the Brambling :) - in fact it's still around today :D The Traditional Family Boxing Day Perambulation this year took place at Stover, on account of it being out, but [just about] accessible. The snow lay thick upon the ice, which lay thick upon the ground, and once we'd managed to get past the car park, it was very pleasant indeed. Tilbury Dog had a whale of a time; bounding around in the snow, skating on the ice, tying herself up in a rhododendron, and going bonkers at the extra-fat squirrels [only exercise those buggers will have had in a while.. ;) ] Tilly likes squirrels. It is one of her fondest wishes that one day she gets the chance to show one just how much....

Ahem.

We got a brief Siskin, a gorgeous and showy Treeeeecreeeeper, very close Nuthatches, and the coolest male GSW I"ve ever seen, coming to the feeders and staying put for almost 30 seconds! The lake is frozen, so is the canal, and only one patch of the weired section is ice-free and Mallard, Coot and Moorhen full. No Marsh Tits or Bullfinches at the feeders, unfortunately.

Today I went down to Broadsands for the first time this winter, having been leery of finding the road icy and getting stuck down there. I know, it's disgraceful... The funny little Swedish survey boat 'Triad' was messing about off Elberry Cove and the fish farm, meaning that bar a couple of GC Grebes and a male R-B Merganser all the birds were to the north. After a teasing early glimpse it took more than an hour to finally nail a very slippery Red-necked Grebe - which promptly vanished again - though that's better than I can say for the L-T Duck, which I couldn't even get a sniff of. I did get counts of 144 GC Grebes, 2 BN Grebes, 3 RT Divers, 7 C Scoter and 11 Razorbill. A couple of Kitts were sat on the sea and a few Gannets were fishing around and about. The Cirls were on station, accompanied by a snazzy male Reed Bunting, though I could only find one Chiff around the marsh [a collybita]. Aside from the chavs and their attack dogs, it was nice. [[Yes, I do like sitting with the wind howling around my ears, trying to hold my scope still as I stare across Tor Bay.... ;) ]]

After getting home and having a quick bite, it was back out onto the Patch. 4 Goldfinches were nice, Redwing numbers have dropped a touch, and there were 85 GC Grebes off Blackball. Assuming [[Nothing wrong with assumptions, as long as you state them]] there's been no flying around, that's 229 for the area, which isn't bad. No doubt the number of grebes was due to all their lakes being frozen combined with the mounting wind. [[The big swell with wind blowing across it had made viewing 'interesting' at Broadsands]]. It started raining properly, also getting dark, so home I toddled. Do I need to say there's been no more Waxwings for me? Didn't think so. I have my eye on a nice cotoneaster, now the Rowans are all stripped, but nothing apart from Redwing on it so far...