A Dismal (weather wise) Sunday at Upton

We decided despite the dismal weather to spend a few hours at Upton on Sunday. As our last two visits had just been to the Flashes we opted for the Moors this time.

After parking up we walked around the back of the pool by the car park just in case anything was sheltering in the trees, but nothing spotted other than a Buzzard that we flushed from one of the trees by the pond at the back.

We carried on to the Lapwing Hide and were treated to some showy Lapwings! Who would have guessed that:

A single Little Egret was out on one of the islands among the Canada Geese:

But the stars today were the Snipe (7) and Little Grebe:

The weather made photography difficult much to dull, but some nice record shots anyway!

There were a few Shoveler about along with the Mallard, Teal and Tufted Ducks:

Quite a few Cormorant, Grey Heron, Mute Swan and Great Crested Grebe about today but to far for any decent shots. The Martins were also really going for it fattening up before heading south. Mind you with Sundays weather we fancied heading south ourselves.

Towards the end of the afternoon we dodged the showers and headed over to the concrete hide, just in case the Kingfisher might put in an appearance, but he knew we were coming so he didn't!

The feeder was very busy with Greenfinches, mainly juvenile, plus the usual Tits, a Juvenile Bullfinch, a female Reed Bunting, a Chaffinch, Blackbird and Dunnock. We did get a brief sighting of a Water Rail fluttering from one set of reeds to the other, but that was it. Total tally was 32 for the afternoon.

Having looked at the forums gutted we weren't there for the Otter on Monday, but that's life!
Still Costa Rica to look forward to, just over 4 weeks to go! It'll be warm and wet but we will put up with that, just to see how many of the 800 odd species they have we can see in 2 weeks.