I've been out of action for quite a while for various reasons, and seem too be spending a lot of time at the doctors and the hospital having lots of tests done. Not sure what the outcome is going to be, but googling for ideas isn't a good idea.
Anyway I've not really been up to going out on the weekends but I had to on Saturday as my wonderful neighbour spent the entire day drilling and hammering on the adjoining wall-he said he was decorating, and it was driving me up crazy.
I ended up spending a couple of hours at Amwell. The weather was dreadful-bitterly cold wind and eventually rain, so I spent most of the time watching gull numbers build up from White Hide. Since my last visit over a month ago, the water levels have risen a bit and as a result duck numbers have increased substantially.
From the view point I could see a lot of larger gulls-mainly Lesser Black Backs and Herring, plus at least eight Greater Black Backs. It took a while but eventually I managed to locate one of the Yellow Legged Gulls-an adult or near adult. There were of course many smaller Gulls-hoards of Black Headed and quite a few Common Gulls but I couldn't find anything unusual. at one point a lot of things went up, which produced the only Snipe that I could find.
The woods, the Walkway and the Hollycross area was rather quiet, though there were several Long Tailed Tits flocks holding some Goldcrests. I would have expected to encounter some thrushes here, and maybe some finches such as Siskin but if they were around they were keeping a low profile.
Naturally, in view of the weather, there weren't any raptors up.
Not much of a species list but it felt good to get out for a bit.
