Burton Mill Pond

 Well after yesterdays twitching success decided to try our luck for the Purple Heron that has been at Burton Mill for a while. I wouldn't  usually bother going for a Purple Heron , I've already seen one, but they are pain in the butt😂 the one I saw was a 2 minute flight view after 3 hours of waiting and I've tried for several others without success, however, I've never been to Burton Pond before and had heard good things so decided to pay a visit!!

We made it up early again and despite missing a couple of turns made the lake about 8 am give or take! We joined some other birders on the viewpoint, who informed us that the star bird had not yet appeared, big surprise!!😁 The lake however was a pleasant enough sight and we settled into wait, a family of Great Crested Grebes with well grown youngsters and a single Tufted Duck pretty much the only birds on view, a couple of Kingfishers zoomed around on a couple of occasions, pictures below but fairly distant so low quality😖 and a Grey Heron caused a couple of  false alarms!😡

Burton Mill Pond by Margie

Trees by Margie

Kingfisher, unfortunately miles away

Kingfisher

Grey Heron

Great Crested Grebe

Adult with near full grown young un!

With no sign of you know who and Margie getting a bit restless, standing in one place waiting for birds is her least favourite type of birding, we decide to do the walk around the lake, this was very pleasant, although fairly quite bird wise, a small flock of Mistle Thrushes were nice, a Buzzard and a Grey Wagtail posing nicely while it had a bath were also highlights. Chingford Pond which adjoins Burton Pond is viewable from the walk, no reedbeds on this one but a few Pochards, Tufties and Little Grebes dotted about, the return leg takes you through fairly dense woodland which was pretty quiet apart from a couple of Siskins, although when it opened out to heathland a nice Woodlark and a Green Woodpecker were of interest.  

Buzzard

Grey Wagtail

Woodlark

So we arrived back at the watchpoint , the same guy who was there when we left to go on our walk informed us the Purple Heron hadn't showed which was a relief and a disappointment at the same time!!😌😕 So we began our second vigil, the sun had moved around lighting up the water revealing what seemed a staggering amount of Fish, hundreds of what I think were Roach, from Fry to quite large specimens which must of gone a couple of lbs. Hard to get pics that show the extent of the shoal with the big lens on but a few below.

Fish, I think Roach

Another view of the pond by Margie

Margie's attempt at the fish

Fish by Margie

Well needless to say by the time we left at 12.30ish the bird hadn't shown we did have great views of a Hobby, several more Kingfisher fly throughs and a spectacular entrance from a couple Swans! we also had several Swallows and a couple Housemartins and quite a few dragonflies zipping about as well.

Great Crested Grebe

Swallow

Incoming Swans by Margie

Incoming Swan by Margie

So predictably no Purple Heron😢 despite nearly six hours of trying, but wasn't really surprised and as said above was more about visiting a new place, found some reasonable birds seen ,Kingfishers ,even distant ones are always good and the Grey Wagtail was a star. Kudos to Margie for sticking at it without whinging much 😲😀 Even met a Facebook friend for the first time in the car park which was cool!! Nice morning!! and at time of writing the Bird still hasn't been reported so it's probably buggered off to France overnight and was never there anyway !! Thems' the breaks if it was easy everybody would be doing it!!!