Double Frustration

....sounds like a new board game I think...but double frustration was todays 'not surprised really' approach to the bad weather....

Ok, so the sun did shine briefly this morning (im comparing briefly with days and days of rainy windy weather)....

Frustration one: the first chance of this year to go ringing....I was a little surprised to find a frost this morning when I left the house and I immediately knew it would probably mean trouble.  The nets have been furled (rolled up) for days in the rain and in this way they hold on to a large amount of water.  With a frost on top they became frozen solid lumps of ice in places so no way would they open.  Usually, in frosty weather, they are difficult to open but will do so with some teasing.  So todays frost was the last thing I wanted after the rain.  So, I went bird watching....

Frustration two:

somewhere out there are some gravel pits.................!!.............

0730-0930 cold, frosty, still, foggy

I was a little surprised to see the fog across the Medway area beyond Five Oak Green whilst I was still driving.  A view can be obtained around the Capel area across toward Golden Green, so I knew it would be a difficult 'counting' morning...and it was true.

Arriving at the village it was still murky.  Song Thrush was in full voice.  House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Collared Dove all piped in.

Setting off across the orchard Great Tit gave itself away by the railway and a Crow passed over.  Wren sang its cheerful song but failed to lift both the gloom of the morning and my own.

A few Fieldfare rattled in the orchard, but not many, maybe half a dozen.  (I again visited three orchards today, all with very few Fieldfare around....im guessing they are all still out on the marshes somewhere as they sure as hell aint in the orchards.  I had made a note to count them again and managed to find about 40 in the usual tree, with some Woodpigeon, on my return from the pits, but apart from that....nothing...no Redwing).  Despite the frost the ground was still muddy and clingy and harder going than it should be for this time of the year.

Reaching the northern side of the orchard, the line of Poplars came in to view.....sort of....

...............this is about 100m away.........

                                                    So.....off across the fields I went....

...and amazingly about half a dozen Meadow Pipit were found.  A Skylark chirruped away in to the fog...and then I got to the gravel pits....

This Willow is still some way out of its depth along the usual edge of the pit...though the water has receded a little, two of the larger pits are still joined together....

I could see several Coot and one Tufted Duck.  I could hear one or two Mallard.  Then 5 Yellowhammer appeared.  A nice bonus.  I heard a Moorhen.  A Chaffinch.  So I decided to meander along the edge of a couple of the pits to see if I could see anything.  4 Mute Swan flew over heading West.  A Lesser Black Backed Gull wandered around and around one of the pits before finally disappearing West as well.  A Black Headed Gull headed in the other direction.  A Grey Wagtail was feeding around the puddles (very large in some cases) by the pits.

A Great Crested Grebe idled briefly a few metres from me after surfacing and clearly not expecting to see anyone watching.  The sun had been trying to creep unnoticed upward-ish.....and....

 ....it was like being in a Turner painting...............

5 Cormorants had nestled in one of the Oaks....

 By this time I had had enough of the fog.  It was slowly clearing but as my time was limited anyway I knew it wouldnt be any use hanging around for the fog to clear off the pits.  So I headed back.  I could hear some geese beginning to honk on one of the pits I had passed...and in to murky view came 53 Barnacle Geese!  Rather unexpected I must say.  Rather fab find of the day for me.
Off back across the fields and the fog had mostly cleared  from here, the sun had approached up-ness and the sky revealed a rather nice herring-bone.....so, looking back now, on reflection, I saw a few birds and a rather nice sky.....ah well....things, as they say, can only get better....(anyone seen the rainy forecast for the next few days..............!)  A Dunnock shuffle-winged by.