A day at Fishers Green, Essex, 7th January 2022

A sunny day and a chance to add a few birds to the year list and hopefully get some good pictures. An unexpected bonus was this female Goosander on the river, just behind the WDC. It was early, so undisturbed and I managed to get some shots before it moved round to the relief channel.

And a bit of video of her.

A walk down to Hall Marsh scrape yielded three very dark plumaged female Pheasants. There seems to be quite a few of them in this part of the Lee Valley.

The long staying Cattle Egret also obliged, and while initially distant, it flew in closer for some shots.

A welcome surprise was a male Bullfinch just off the path by the hide. It was present for quite a while, quietly feeding, but often obscured. Thankfully I managed to get two decent images of this stunning bird.

I next headed back up to the WDC and one of the resident Great Crested Grebes was on the river.

Adding up the miles I decided to head up to the farms to see if the Brambling flock was still present. As usual, there were a number of Egyptian Geese at the Dairy farm.

The Brambling were located fairly easily and were part of a mixed flock with some Chaffinches. Difficult to estimate numbers but certainly into double figures. Fortunately, a couple showed quite well just as it started to cloud over.

Always a good day out at Fishers Green.