New Hythe Monday 29th November

I left the car in the drive today and walked from home to Brooklands lake and back via the country park. These are some of the good bits.

The Goldeneye, pictured above is still on the smaller of the two Alders Lakes, aka the Trout lake. It's very difficult to get close to but I managed to sneak up a bit nearer today. There was a flock of about twelve Siskins feeding in the first Alder tree down the towpath between the two Alders lakes along with some Goldfinches. On the big lake were plenty of Pochard, Shoveler and Gadwall alongside the regular species, but strangely no Gt. Crested Grebes as far as I could see. Probably due to a lack of small prey fish in this lake since it was given over to monster Carp.

I accidentally flushed a Common Snipe from the Bittern viewing spot, one of two seen today, unfortunately though, despite my best efforts, I didn't see the Bittern. But after i'd seen it a couple of weeks ago, Eddie Denson spoke to some contacts at SE Water and I believe Mid Kent Fisheries and the Country Park and asked for some extra protection for the birds. Today I saw this sign which refers to the fishing swim directly alongside the reed bed that the Bitterns use. This could have been a major disturbance for them if it had been occupied by fishermen for days and nights on end. Nice one Eddie.

Still good numbers of Little Grebes on the river, where I saw the second Snipe of the morning along with three Redshanks, a single Lapwing and one of two Kingfishers seen today. There were literally hundreds of Redwings in and around the sunken marsh as well as three Bullfinches, a Green Woodpecker and a single Fieldfare.

And finally, i'm pleased to say that the Slavonian Grebe is still with us on Brookland lake, although it took me about half an hour to find it. There was also a Goosander at some point in the morning but I managed to miss that. Grrrrh!!

No new additions to the New Hythe November list today, which looks like staying at 56 species.