Did you see the sunshine??

Seeing the colour reflected on the underside of the clouds as I woke this morning prompted a rapid response, breakfast, shoes cameras etc and coffee I was of to the floods around the Atcham area for a good mooch around.
What a difference gone were the long grey faces of yesterday and the wet dull roadways reflected in the sky all over, now people were smiling, talking to the person next to them in the buss Que, instead of huddling in their coats with collars and hoods up.
The sight of the vast silvered lakes covering all the available space at Atcham was a bit surreal as the naked trees were reflected in the swirling waters of the river and birds hunched up in the branches looking like lost and forgotten Christmas baubles waiting for the lights to return. needless to say there was very little of note, Goosander, Canada Geese, mallard and a few Black headed gulls.

I arrived at Venus pools to find more cars parked than I expected, it was straight to the Feeding station to see what was moving around. The feeders were virtually empty and that was causing a stir as the more adventurous or aggressive try'd to dominate the feeders to reach the last of the seed ,. This was interesting, the interactive and inter species patterns were fantastic to watch as you do not normally see this when the feeders were full.

This is the only shot of the Brambling of the ground, a nice bird shame no nice males in the vicinity at the moment, the flocks in Wiltshire are reaching over 100+.

It was on the way out that once again the Bull finches were grazing the new shoots like a small herd of cows, but would not let me get close to them, so just a couple of record shots were taken before leaving for home and a well earned tea or two.

A nice female but insisted in staying in the top of the trees.

Not a large and verbose episode but the main reason for VP today was to watch and track the Short tailed vole for the up coming project todays count was 6 both in and outside the feeding area, must check out the area in the dark for Tawny etc??

So thanks for coming and see you again .

Paul