Lovely and sunny this morning so got ready and off to Marston for a while, hopeful that I would catch sight of a Twite or two!
Got to the car park and already the sun had buggered off leaving a dull looking patch in front of me 😦 I heard the single note call of a Great Spotted Woodpecker and caught it from distance from the car park high in a tree on the road heading into Marston village.
The walk down to the hide saw many Great and Blue Tits, Dunnocks and Robins with the odd Chaffinch and Goldfinch flying up from the leak field too. I got to the hide and along the path caught a glimpse of a Coal Tit, not a species I have seen too often here. The hide was next port of call with the view from the hide giving up about 20 each of Teal and Mallard, 2 pairs of battling Coot, the odd Moorhen and 2 pairs of Shelduck.
Now up to this point no photos were taken apart from the GSW and I waited and waited in the dull and cold conditions to see if I could take any more, it was not looking good then the sun appeared breifly and I tried to get some shots of one of the pair of Shelduck and all I kept seeing was the ‘parson’s nose in the air’ routine as they fed 🙂 A couple of typical Shelduck sights shown below …
Finally got a few shots fired off before the sun once again went away, one of these shots below …
The Shelducks then decided to go to the far end of the water and off I went down Viking Way, I heard at least 5 Cetti’s singing sporadically and saw one bird fleetingly in the long reeds near the 5 bar gate on Viking Way, waited a little but never saw it again.
A Grey Heron did pop up then drop down in the area near the five bar gate appearing in the long reed beds and landing in the shorter stuff to the left of the gate and track the ringers use.
After sometime looking into the leek field where the workers are currently I was seeing plenty of active, Golfinches, Chaffinches and Reed Buntings but no Linnets or Twite!
I began to walk back to the car as the snow flurries were getting more established and occasionally I turned back to look at the hedgerow splitting the leak fields to see a group of birds spooked by a moving tractor fly up from the field close to the workers parked cars into a bush in the hedgrow next to the cars, I was a long, long way off and all I could do was to fire off a few shots to look at later. Now to me these birds, or most of them look like Linnets but was there a Twite in with them? I don’t know but really don’t think so as a close up review at 200% magnification did not show anything I could say yes Twite! to, pic below.
Never mind next time eh, assuming they haven’t gone before I get to MSTW again 🙂
lincsbirders 