Amwell

Having had a bit of a rest on Thursday, I went down to Amwell for a couple of hours this morning. Work on the gas pipes has yet to start, so the entire reserve was still accessible. Pity about all the 'improvements' on the A602 as it was a bit of a slow drive in both directions.
Weather was very autumnal, fairly mild, rather overcast and with a bit of a south westerly breeze. Nice to see that a lot of the area in front of the view point has been cleared, and some of the channels and pools down there have been re-done. Water levels are still on the low side, with lots of exposed mud, but it does look a lot better now.
Missed a couple of good birds. The recent Rock Pipit appears to have gone, and an adult Mediterranean Gull had departed by the time I arrived.  There were a few Common and Lesser Black Backed Gulls, the usual collection of wildfowl and reasonable numbers of Lapwings. Small  birds were moving around all the time, with regular flyover Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Goldfinches and a few Siskin. Redpolls are around-Barry had 25 and while I did see some distant flocks of finches, they were unidentifiable. Two Swallows flew down river-potentially my last of the year.
I went for a walk over to Hollycross which is now apparently open all year round and met up with Barry on the bridge. We had a big tit flock here with at least one Marsh Tit calling and several Goldcrests with them. I managed to get a few Goldcrest shots but the light was rather poor so they are not all that great.
I didn't see a great deal on Hollycross so returned via the woods and picnic area  finding a few Siskin here and then back to the view point. Two Red Kites, two Sparrowhawks a Buzzard and  Kestrel were in the air. I spent some time checking distant corvids hoping that one of the Ravens might come up and join them, and then decided to go round the woods again just in case the Redpolls were present, but didn't find anything new.