I had a pleasant couple of hours over at the Ings this morning. It was 16C when I drove into the car park on the reserve at Fairburn. The sun was shining and there was a light South westerly wind. After a quick chat with the wardens and a coffee I headed over to the ‘Pick up hide’ for the rest of the morning. It was relatively quiet on the lake with a pair of Mute swans which spent most of the morning preening. There were several families of coots with chicks ranging from youngsters to juveniles on the water’s edge, along with Moorhens although their chick looked much younger than the Coot chicks.

A Buzzard had landed on a distant wooden fence post and stayed for a good hour, looking one way, then the other before flying off towards the far corner of the reserve towards the ‘LinDyke hide’. A Little Egret landed on the water and started feeding straight away, it stayed for most of the morning. 

There had been several sightings of the Cattle Egret over the last few days seen over by the ‘Flashes’ and the ‘LinDyke hide’, although I kept my eyes open for it there was no sign of it at the Pick up hide.  

Over on the feeders, it was nice to see the Goldfinch this morning, it brought a bit of colour to the feeders, along with the male Chaffinch, the Chaffinch colours are looking really bright and vibrant at the moment. Greenfinch paid a visit too, along with one of my favourites the Dunnock. The juvenile Robins were looking good, several of them were showing slight glimpses of red on their chests. The male juvenile Pheasant was hovering around the feeders this morning picking up the spent seed from the floor. 

Rabbit and Bank Voles were showing well this morning, both under the feeders, the voles are so fast, no sooner have they left the safety of their little nest hole, collected some seed from under the feeders and before you know it have returned back to security of their little hole. 

The Green Woodpecker was quite noisy this morning around the hide, I still haven’t been able to see it yet. 

As the morning progressed the wind picked up to and by 11.15am was getting quite chilly, at this point I called it a day and headed back to the warmth of the visitors centre and a coffee before the drive home.