A walk to Eske today was very pleasant due to the warm sunshine, despite the fact that there was not a great abundance of birds to be seen. Almost nothin of interest turned up on the walk up to the lake apart form a freshly ploughed field which had attracted a flock of Black-headed Gulls and a few Stock Doves.

At the lake far fewer ducks were present compared with last week, even though hoards of Greylag Geese were in residence along with 2 Pink-footed Geese. Just 5 Wigeon were on the lake today with 4 Shoveler, 1 female Goldeneye, 22 Tufted Duck, 34 Mallard and a small number of Coot, Moorhen and Great Crested Grebes. Whilst watching the birds on the lake 4 Mute Swans landed with a crash on the water.

I walked around the back of the lake and found some extremely warm sunny patches overlooking the small pools surrounded by scrub. A group of 4 Cormorants were surveying their domain from the top of a dead tree and every bush seemed to have a couple of Redwings in it. The Redwings were constantly flying across the pools and in the sunlight I got some very nice views. Also in the pools were a couple of Kingfishers and a group of 9 Gadwall and 2 Teal that didn’t seem to have spotted me.

Whilst standing watching the Redwing activity near these pools a group of 9 Swallows came in from the north and began feeding on insects flying in the warm sunshine. After a few minutes they continued southwards; I guess they might be the last Swallows I see this year. The next bird to show itself at this spot was a Snipe which was flushed out by a foraging Coot and 2 Kestrels flew over together.

That was about it as far as birds were concerned apart from a few common species such as Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Blackbird, although I got a brief view of a Great Spotted Woodpecker. However, I came across some yellow fungus that made a fairly interesting subject to photograph although I managed to get only a few decent ones amongst loads of blurry photos.

I took a swift walk back to the car and got quite hot in the process. I also came across a Red Admiral butterfly, a Small White and a Small Tortoiseshell as well as even more Redwings which seemed to be arriving in lots of small flocks. I also took a look at all the Black-headed Gulls hoping to find something more interesting but was out of luck.