RSPB Big Garden Bird watch & A Walk at Longham lakes

Today was the start of the RSPB Big Garden Bird watch week end this is were lots of people record the bird for one hour at any time of the week end. This bird watch week end as been running for 36 year now and around half million people take part.
So this morning  a cuppa made and settlled to watch the bird in the garden from the kicthen window.
This is something I have done since 2012  for the BTO garden survey every week.
So what birds turned up in the hour.
Blackbirds but never two at the some time, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Dunnock, Magpies, Robins, and three Woodpigeon.
Some picture of the bird that turned up today.

Female Blackbird

Great Tit

Robin

Song Thrush

Woodpigeon

Later in the afternoon I had a walk round Longham Lakes hoping to get a picture of the female Scaup

which I found in the north east corner of the south lake but was to far away to get any decent shot of her hopefully it wil stick around .

I was sursprised that there seemed not to many wildfowl on the lake as the have been just few Teal, some Pochard on the South and North Lakes and the Tufted Ducks, Coots , Little Grebe along with some Great Crested Grebe. What was nice to see was two foxs sitting in the sun by the little pools at the south end of south lake.

Fox sitting in the Sun

Longham Lakes

Took a walk round the lakes on Saturday 10th to look for the Scaup, in the process of looking for the scaup I got a bit distracted by a female Pochard with a pale blue nasel band and I was trying to get the lettering which I think I have got but getting my note book out to write them this bird disappeared and I could not find it again the number was central letter F with numbers either side 24 F 24 thats what I thought I was reading.
While scanning the flocks of ducks again I was told that the Scaup was up in the centre of the south lake so I went up to have a look it took a bit of searching but I found it but it kept diving so it it a very hard duck to find and with out the information given I mostl likely would of past it of as a female type tufted.
Went back on Sunday for a quick walk round the lake with my son and had a wonderful view of a drake Pintail with a good number of Teal in one of the flooded pools on Hampreston meadows
a Med Gull and two Stonechats.

Great Crest Grebe

At Longham Lakes I think there are some nice wildfowl to get pictures of but the are always just out of range of my lens and ability to take decent pictures of them, like this Great Crested Grebe.
Edit
I have heard back from the ringer of the Pochard and it Banded and ringed in France at SAINT-PHILBERT-DE-GRAND-LIEU on 04/06/2008

A good day out

Today I spent most of the day well late morning until about 4pm looking for birds the weather was not great with it being grey blustery and with the odd light shower. I still had a good day I started the morning watching the birds in the garden while having some breakfast, then went over to Longham Lakes it was a bit windy here in places but still a nice selection of the usual birds were there though I did not see any Lapwings or Shoveler on this trip.
It was a hard day though at times and by 4pm I had run out of steam and decided to call it a day and Head home as I had been out since 10am and got out without doing the washing up of the breakfast plates.
So what about the birds well I did not get anywhere near a 100 for the day but not a bad list for one
1- Mute Swan
2- Greylag Goose
3- Shelduck
4-Wigeon
5-Gadwall
6-Teal
7-Mallard
8-Pintail
9-Pochard
10-Tufted Duck
11-Cormorant
12-Little Egret
13-Grey Heron
14-Spoonbill
15-Little Grebe
16-Great Crested Grebe
17- Common Buzzard
18-Moorhen
19-Coot
20-Avocet
21-Oystercatcher
22-Curlew
23-Black-tailed Godwit
24-Spotted Redshank
25-Common Redshank
26-Common Snipe
27-Black-headed Gull
28-Herring Gull
29-Great Black-backed Gull
30-Woodpigeon
31-Green Woodpecker
32-Kestrel
33-Peregrine
34-Magpie
35-Jackdaw
36-Carrion Crow
37-Blue Tit
38-Great Tit
39-Long-tailed Tit
40-Blackcap
41-Wren
42-Blackbird
43-Redwing
44-Robin
45-Dunnock
46-House Sparrow
47-Pied Wagtail
48-Greenfinch
49-Goldfinch
50-Reed Bunting