From a snowy LDV

Well, it wasn't that bad really but a light covering of snow in the area.

As I drove home from York this afternoon I grabbed 5 minutes at each of Bank Island and Thorganby viewing platform.  Both were fairly quiet though a flock of c.45 Snipe were doing circuits of the reserve and there was a good 200+ Fieldfare around. Didn't see anything unusual-looking on the water.

Thorganby was fairly quiet, though the Barn Owl was showing well again in front of the platform. Lots of Wigeon and at least 8 Shelduck visible, but again nothing really interesting. In fairness if there was, I may have missed it given the brevity of my check! I was hoping for a drake Smew sat right in front of the platform! But then I don't seem to have Tims luck!

I had a quick look off Bubwith Bridge again and this area was heaving, looking forward to the weekend when I can hopefully get some time to carefully work through all the Teal and Wigeon. There must have been 2.5/3x the number of each of these present today than my counts on Saturday, presumably a combination of some frozen areas and a reduction in water levels throughout the valley. Surely there's got to be a Green-winged Teal or American Wigeon here.... I have had both here in the past.... There was at least 6 male Pintail, several male Shoveler, more Shelduck, Pocahrd, Tufted Duck etc (again due to the quick scan these are likely to be under-estimations as I was just looking for the obvious i.e. not females!). There was a couple of Whooper and Mute Swans and a good number of Lapwing, Golden Plover, Dunlin, Ruff, Snipe and over 20 Redshank again (feeding, not roosting this time).

I hear that the 2nd winter Iceland Gull that Tim found last Saturday at Rufforth has been seen again today! That may take up some/all of my time at the weekend! I hope it's more co-operative this time round!

I didn't get any pictures today for obvious reasons, so here's one from the other day.

Barn Owl from before the time of continuous rain...