Sutton Bingham - Wed 12 Mar

This afternoon I decided against travelling too far and spent a couple of hours at Sutton Bingham instead, this was my first chance to visit the patch this month, and it turned out to be a pretty good visit.
From the northern causeway a pair of Tufted Duck were on West Pool and a Green Woodpecker could be heard "yaffling" from the trees near the railway line (though didn't actually show itself!). There was not much else on the reservoir so I headed down to the site where the hide was located and walked along the water's edge as far as the Canoe Club and then back again. A total of ten Snipe were flushed from the vegetation (though only five were seen together so there is a possibility that I flushed the same birds twice).
Scanning the fields on the opposite side of the reservoir I had a massive surprise when I located a Red-legged Partridge! I have this species on my patch life list but had only ever heard one bird, and that was years ago, so to actually see one was as good as a patch tick really. I even managed to get this hi-res image of it:

Popping back to the car I then carried on and took a walk around the southern end of the reservoir. There were still a few Teal around, with twenty-four birds being counted. A pair of Mandarin Ducks flew in from the south and appeared to land somewhere. It was reassuring to hear and then see a Marsh Tit, this species seems to just about be hanging on at Sutton Bingham. There followed another surprise as I spotted a Mink, a first for me here and not a welcome one!
Returning to the car three Great Spotted Woodpeckers were making heck of a din as they chased each other through the trees and a Raven passed overhead. Other new patch ticks for the year came in the form of a male Kestrel flying south and at least two Jays screaming at each other from the trees opposite "the hide".
So all in all a pretty good time at Sutton Bingham this afternoon, just waiting for the Spring migrants to start passing through now!
Sutton Bingham year list for 2014 now at 70 species.