Another poor vis mig morning with just around 50 Fieldfare over >S and 15 Redwing >E after the rain had cleared.
By late afternoon a visit to Soil Hill had to be aborted due to thick fog so down to Ogden which was just below the cloud base but dark, grey and drizzly. Even with those conditions it was a problem parking and the disturbance was horrific, thank goodness its back to school next week, though having said that much of the disturbance was from adults. One instance was I,d just found the Chaffinch/ Brambling flock after a lot of searching when along came a group of 12 adults and even though they could see I was watching something they decided to stop by me to take snaps of each other with plenty noise so away went the flock. I think Ogden should be made permit holders only, who me, selfish!!.
Anyway, with that behind me it was a bonus to see 3 female Goosander drop down out of the low cloud and stay on the water throughout along with the Little Grebe.
No sign of Kingfisher or Dipper by the sluice gates but disturbance from YW in the area so on to the west bank Alders where all the action was and less nuggets about.
The whole of the area was heaving with birds but very difficult to spot silhouetted against the dark sky looking like a mass of black dots flitting about.
I checked around 15 Goldcrests but its looking as if we,ve missed out on any Yellow Browed this year so we,ll have to watch for Firecrest now instead.
Passerines in the Alders were :-
c15 Goldcrest
8 Long Tailed Tits
c20 Chaffinch
2 Brambling
c30 Goldfinch
4 Siskin
1 Redpoll
Sev Gt, Blue and Coal Tits.
BS