8°C: Cloudy: a spell of soaking drizzle and rain c.08:00: otherwise fine. Moderate W wind. Very good visibility, moderate in heaviest drizzle
Sunrise: 08:17 GMT
Priorslee Lake: 06:45 – 09:30
(12th visit of the year)
Bird notes
- the pair of Mute Swans went for a fly-about with one leaving the confines of the lake for a short while
- large number of Jackdaws again. Harder to count or estimate today as many passed more or less directly low overhead of me: and at the same time geese were confusingly flying at right angles through the mass of birds
Bird totals
Birds noted flying over or flying near the lake
- 1 Greylag Goose again
- 9 Canada Geese again
- 1 Cormorant
- 4 Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- 1 Stock Dove
- 14 Wood Pigeons
- >750 Jackdaws
Birds recorded leaving roosts around the lake
None as it was raining hard at the time and I was sheltering.
The counts from the lake area:
- 2 Mute Swans
- 6 (3♂) Gadwall
- 15 (11♂) Mallard
- 8 (4♂) Pochard
- 29 (15♂) Tufted Ducks
- 1 Grey Heron
- 2 Little Grebes
- 4 Great Crested Grebes again
- 11 Moorhens
- 74 Coots
- c.200 Black-headed Gulls
- 1 Lesser Black-backed Gull
My log of other things, on lamp poles
- 1 spider sp., possibly the orb-web spider Zygiella x-notata
- 1 small red-eyed fly sp. quite likely a Long-horned Black Legionnaire (Beris geniculata)
- 1 Earwig sp. (likely Forficula auricularia)
‘Red sky in the morning’ and all that: 10 minutes later it was that soaking drizzle.
