Walmsley Sanctuary this afternoon

I was going to spend the whole of today catching up on work and resting but it was just too nice to spend all day inside, even when cleaning my car this Marsh Tit was distracting me as it happily fed away on the feeders...

With most of my work done I decided to nip out to Walmsley Sanctuary and enjoy a nice quiet evenings birding , Walmsley is such a nice place to go in the afternoon as the light is picture perfect and there is often nobody there , today was no different and this smart fox was my only company as I watched all the birds feeding away in front of me

However the ducks in attendence weren't very keen on the fox and they were also getting bothered by this nice male Sparrowhawk , it seemed I was the only one allowed to chill out at Walmsley today....

As the tide pushed more birds into the reserve I counted 19 Wigeon, 2 Shoveler, 78 Teal, 1 Tufted Duck, 2 Water Rail, 1 Ringed Plover, 2 Curlew, 8 Black tailed Godwit, 10 Ruff, 1 Dunlin, 1 Knot, 6 Snipe, 52 Swallow, 1 Firecrest and 1 Grey Wagtail 

A flock of 10 Ruff is a good number for the county , it's amazing how different in size each bird is.

I will miss these evenings now the nights are drawing in ... much better than being at home watching t.v!