Fishers Green - 17th January 2024

A walk with the SE Herts RSPB Group which started off at the Wildlife Discovery Centre, or to me, the Bittern hide! No sign today of the Bittern or the male Smew which had re-located to Bowyer's Water as a lot of the lakes were frozen over. We therefore decided to follow the Flood Relief channel up to Holyfield Weir. The Great Crested Grebes were already starting to display.

A good find was a female Goldeneye on the river.

Slightly further along, we found the male. You can clearly see where it got its name from!

At the weir there were double figure numbers of Goosander, mostly females as pictured here.

A few of the group had a brief view of a Peregrine which was later tracked down to one of the pylons. Here is a picture as a record. The Cormorants seemed unfazed by its presence.

On the way back we chanced upon a small flock of Siskin in Alders near the Fishermen's car park. Really tricky to get shots due to the poor light.

A fly by Little Egret gave some great views!

Back at the viewpoint we had all five of the more commoner Gulls and it was good that this included a Great Black-Backed Gull.

A great morning with good company!