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| Wet and windy Strumpshaw Fen today |
An absolutely appalling day today. Gale force winds and relentless heavy rain is not exactly the best conditions for my final shift of 2017 that I was hoping for. After spending a couple of days at my parent's house for Christmas, I was expecting a much pleasant day at Strumpshaw full of otters, bitterns, etc. Instead, it has just been one of those days in which you would rather stay at home. In fact, it seems as if everyone else had the right idea. Only a single visitor was brave or foolish enough to show up this morning.
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| White horses forming on the broad |
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| Ducks and Coots out in the windy, wet weather |
As the weather was so bad, I didn't really go anywhere outside of the Reception Hide. Even from inside the hide, there wasn't much to see out on the broad anyway. We did see a kingfisher briefly, tumbling around in the wind as it struggles to fly straight over the broad. Marsh harriers, crows, a heron and a couple of Egyptian geese were also seen struggling in the strong gusts. For the marsh harriers, however, it appeared as if they were playing in the wind rather than doing anything serious like hunting. For much of the morning, though, I was stuck watching nothing but the wind battering the reed beds and forming white horses on the water. The brave ducks and coots that were brave enough to remain on the broad were forced to withstand such conditions and were trying their best to avoid the worst of it. Not even the ducks were having much fun in this weather. Let's hope that 2018 starts better than how 2017 ended here at Strumpshaw.
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| Coots and Gadwall |
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| Coots |
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| Coots and Shovelers |
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| Shovelers dabbling |
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| Gadwalls |
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| Mallard |
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| Cobber the Black Swan |
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| Cormorant |
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| Even the Cormorant was struggling to stay on its favourite post |
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