16th Visit to Longham lakes

Made another visit this month to the lakes at Longham this afternoon with my son .
on the wildfowl front it was pretty quiet with only Tufted Duck, Coot and a few Mallard and 3 Teal and a handful of Great Crested Grebes out on the water. We saw our first mallard duckling of the year though 5 in the north west corner and 4 in the south east corner of South Lake.
Even though it was very windy I did managed to add to new birds to the patch list with a patch tick first for me with two Shelduck on the larger island were I also spotted one of the birds that I was hoping would turn up pretty soon was a Common Sandpiper the earliest I have seen on at this lake complex. These two bird bring the Patch Work Challenge list up to 68 species seen with a 71 point score,  I am enjoying doing this challenge at this patch as it is helping me stay focused and getting me out around the lake and this year I am going to beat last years species list which stands at 68 species seen by December 2015
This list of bird we saw today are as follows
Tufted Duck
Great Crested Grebe
Black-headed Gull
Shelduck -2
Canada Goose -4
Coot
Mallard - with 9 duckling seen
Common Sandpiper
Med Gull
Reed Bunting -5
Teal -3
Mute Swans - 20 out on the fields
Herring Gull
Woodpigeon
Kestrel - 1
Jackdaw - 5
Grey Wagtail -1
Little Egret -1
Grey Heron - 1
Blackbird - 1
Robin - 1
Magpie - 1
Chiffchaff - 2
Starling - 4
Great Tit - 2
Goldfinch - 2
Greenfinch - 1
Swallow - 1
Green Woodpecker - 1
Pied Wagtail - 3