Lucking in on Little Owls

Hockey prevented any birding yesterday, and most of today was spent out with the Notts BAG Grizzled Skipper Volunteers on the disused railway line south of Newark.

A nice and open disused railway at Cotham

So the sum total of my birding was about an hour and a quarter this evening at Collingham. Nevertheless, this was quite a productive little trip out, adding Pintail (with a pair on Ferry Lane Lake and a drake on Mons Pool) and Little Owl to my Patchwork Challenge list. The Little Owls were particularly pleasing; not unexpected, but a bird I've been looking for. In fact, I had at least three; firstly one calling from the southern boundary of the field west of Ferry Lane Lake, and then two in a gnarly old willow along Trent Lane, beyond the Silt Lagoon, which I have never looked at properly before!

Water levels across the site are rising rapidly, with Mons Pool brimming and the ditch around Ferry Lane Lake over-toping into the pit. This hadn't affected the wildfowl numbers with plenty of Wigeon and Teal around. The only other notable birds were 5 Whoopers in their usual spot on the west side of the Trent (with what was probably the sixth asleep), a Green Sand distantly in flight north of Ferry Lane Lake, and 3 Bullfinches along Northcroft Lane. 

Ferry Lane Lake filling up

Collingham Waterfall, watched by a Buzzard

The source of the waterfall