28th February. In From The Cold

Over the last couple of days you'd be forgiven for thinking that spring had arrived, even the locals were taking their first dip in the lake this afternoon!

Duck numbers (most noticeably Pochard) have reduced drastically over the last few days, the Oystercatchers are back and Ringed Plovers are almost daily.  The gull roost has become rather insignificant over the last couple of nights - though I did finally pull an Iceland Gull out of the bag on Saturday.  A combination of poor light, shaking from the cold and crap technique resulted in some truly awful images of this juv/1st winter/2nd calendar year bird - it was a lot easier when we just called them immatures.

It was still there at first light the following morning and dropped in the dark on Sunday evening. A reminder that there's still plenty to go at this winter.