Monday 10th. February 2014

Firstly , I've been pleased to read three reports of Slavonian Grebe sightings in the area around the Bittern viewpoint at Castle Water , Rye , the area where I got a very quick glimpse of such a bird on my last visit there , so reasonable to say that my brief sighting and ID was correct .
Last Friday in a lull in the rain , I made a visit to Bough Beech Reservoir , but due to the amount of water that has been pumped in , I have never seen it so full , the only sightings were a few Tufted Duck on the North Lake and 3 Pochard , 1 Cormorant and 1 GCGrebe on the main reservoir . I'm sure that there were other birds there , but the water being now right into the surrounding vegetation and trees , new feeding and resting areas mean that they can stay out of sight from anyone on the causeway . A quick look around the feeders and the orchard didn't turn up anything out of the ordinary , even the fallen apples had only attracted a handful of Fieldfares . So , I decided to move on to some feeders in woodland a couple of miles away , that were last year covered in Siskins , but like other places , very few have turned up this year . Great and Blue Tits made up the majority of visitors to the feeders , but every now and again , other species turned up like ,

at least two Marsh Tits , but could have been more , rarely feeding , just flying off with up to three sunflower seeds to eat away from all the commotion ,

two or more Coal Tits , employing their 'snatch and fly' feeding method ,

Finch cousins , Siskin (male) and Goldfinch ,

Tit cousins , Marsh and Blue ,

Goldfinch , Siskin and Marsh Tit ,

less frequent visitors were at least two Nuthatches ,

who also made regular visits to a 'drinking well' high above the feeders ,

two GSWoodpeckers were too shy to come down to the feeders whilst I was there ,

and just before leaving , a few LTTits arrived , and headed straight for the fat balls .
This morning , I headed for Sevenoaks Reserve , hoping for a bit more of that sunshine , but all I got was grey skies and rain . Once again , I've never seen the water level so high , with hardly a single island showing from Tyler Hide , which I just made before the first of the many showers whilst on

site . Out in the gloom in the middle of the East Lake , a pair of GCGrebes were displaying to each other , will be hoping to get better shots of the 'weed dance' when they start nesting . Heading down towards Sutton Hide , I found the female Goosander tucked away in the little bay , but she didn't hang

around for long , just managing to get a few shots as she went . In the Alders , Siskins could be heard , but went unseen in the gloom . Good numbers of Pochard again from Sutton Hide and with

just a few females around , the drakes seemed to have just one thing on their minds , with a lot of displaying/showing off going on . On the loop back to Tyler Hide , Scarlet Elfcup / Sarcoscypha

coccinea did it's best to brighten the day , contrasting nicely with the green moss , growing on decaying branches on the ground . I caught up again with the female Goosander just before the track

to the car park , but she was more alert this time , so I only managed a shot of her heading for open water and as far away from the camera that she could get .
And finally , although still not yet halfway through February , the male Hazel catkins are already open and releasing their pollen , and to receive it , the red female flowers are fully open , ready to be

pollinated and produce nuts in the Autumn .