Waterway to Spend a Morning...

The summer migrants are beginning to arrive.  A few hours over at the patch this morning held three Chiffchaffs singing around the canal. Two even did the honourable thing and put in an appearance.  

Another surprise was the presence of the Kingfisher.  It's been a good month or two since my last sighting of her, but today she showed fairly regularly in the same place along the canal.  A mostly shady spot viewable from the bridge, and too far for the camera of course, but... that's Kingfishers for you.   It's been reported here a couple of times, so it must be frequenting the area, although it's the first time I've seen it here.  Perhaps I've just been looking in the wrong place?

 A great bird to have at the park, I'm hoping that it stays for a few more weeks as the four or five sightings that I've had are not nearly enough....

- Apologies for the messed up colours, blogger compression seems to have done something to it...

Summer Visitor Winters Here

After all the rain we had last night the patch was quite water-logged this morning.  The playing fields had become like marshes and the water level of the lakes and waterways had swelled rather a lot.  The canal was a good 5 inches deeper than usual.  I was certainly glad for a spell of sunshine while I was there, even if it didn't last for long.

As we were walking back around the Fish Lake before heading back I heard a call which sounded to me like a Chiffchaff.  And there it was flitting around in a conifer tree above me.  Quite an unexpected bird for the patch in January.  I watched it for about fifteen minutes or so and it seemed content to stay in a pair of conifers along with a Goldcrest, I wonder if it will stay for the winter or if it was just passing through when the heavy rain started?  I'm sure I'll find out soon enough though.

 Valentino the Med Gull was on the lake today as well, it's the first sighting I've had of him since New Year's Day so it was good to see he's still around.  Despite the high water there is still a Grey Wagtail around, but no sign of the Kingfisher recently.  Still not a bad day, it's always nice to find something unusual at the patch, maybe there'll be a Snipe in one of those flooded fields....