Brecks and Washes

It's been a bit of a rollercoaster week or so. I've had a viral infection-so the doctor thinks, for over a week now. Not a lot of fun with what amounts to on-off not quite flu, feeling cold, achy limbs, difficulty walking and even standing at times, plus the expected chest and respiratory issues. Strange thing is that some days are a lot better than others, and I was able to get out over the weekend.
I paid a brief visit to Amwell on Saturday which didn't really get many birds, though it was good to have a chat with William, Bill and Phil. Unfortunately being cloudy, the Bittern didn't show (again), and the regular Goosander and Smew weren't around while I was there-and it seems the recent Jack Snipe had disappeared. About the only noteworthy sight was that the flock of Redpolls are still around.
On Sunday, Colin and I decided to visit he brecks, as this wouldn't involve anything strenuous, and a lot of the birding was based on getting out of the car, having a look round and then getting back in again.
Lynford Arboretum invoked the only significant exercise and this was only a stroll down from the car pa to the paddocks and back again. The feeding station near the cottages was very productive with a big flock of Brambling, some Chaffinches, Tits, Blackbirds and a Nuthatch or two.

The walk down to the paddocks was accompanied by a lot of bird song with thrushes, tits and crests, plus vocal flocks of Redpoll and Siskins in the births and alders. The Hawfinches in the paddocks were rather elusive, spending a lot of time on the ground with occasional flights into the trees. We concluded that there were 12 birds though with Chaffinches also present it was rather hard to be absolutely certain. At one point there was what sounded like a gunshot and the Hawfinches flew towards the lake, so I walked down the path and found at least 8 birds overhead though they were hard to see. I managed to get one of them in the camera.

On the way back to the car we spent a bit of time searching without success for Firecrests, we had been told that numbers were a lot lower than in the past. A couple of flyover Crossbills were a bonus.
We left Lynford and drove up Foulden road stopping off the scan Colveston Wood. There were several Buzzards, a Kite, a Kestrel and a very brief view of a female Goshawk. Skylarks were singing in the fields to the south and a Woodlark was singing in the field to the north. We carried on to the usual spot looking north towards Cockley Cley and joined the small crowd. More Skylarks singing, around 10 Buzzards and a rather nice displaying male Goshawk were seen, though we only stopped there for about ten minutes.
We then drove over to Welney, stopping off at several points west of Ten Mile Bank to scan the swan herds. There were a lot of swans scattered all over and my count of 380 Whooper and 30 Bewicks was very conservative. Marsh Harriers and Chinese Water Deer were also seen. We didn't stop at Welney for long, only to pick up a new seed feeder to replace one damaged in storms last year but we did spend some time admiring the Tree Sparrows.

The journey back was pretty rough as I had become very tired and my legs seemed to have stopped working but we did call in at Deadman's Hill. I found 15 Yellowhammer and 22 Sotck Doves but missed the Partridges and the Corn Bunting that flew out from the hedge.