Monday 4th June

It was a bit grim when I went out at 6.30am this morning so my expectations were not that high.On Furnace Pond a pair of Canada Geese had turned up with five well grown goslings. These birds have not nested on the lake but I suspect they may have nested on a nearby pond then walked across fields to get here.
There were a total of eleven Mandarins, mostly drakes which are in moult. It was nice to find a couple of recently fledged Blackcaps being fed by the female and also a family of Nuthatches in the lakeside trees.
The constant drizzle had bought down a group of about 30 Swallows and a couple of House Martins. Both pairs of Coots now seem to be without chicks and only one Mallard has a couple of ducklings. It's sad that there seems to be such a high morality rate amongst the water fowl. There wasn't any chance of photographs this morning so I've added one of a cute fox cub I took last week.

The Little Owl was out around the paddock in Shirrenden where I also saw 2 of the recently fledged Great Spotted Woodpeckers.
So although the weather was grim it was a very enjoyable walk.