One of those lively days at the Dorney Rowing Lakes today, with circa 5-600 Canada Geese, 40 Greylags, 80 Egyptian Geese, a Barnacle Goose and an escaped blue morph Snow Goose type - not a truly wild bird among them!! Together with circa 400 corvids and 80 odd BHGs, many feeding at height over the lake it was some show. But prize bird went to a single COMMON GREENSHANK on the reserve pool and with it a juvenile COMMON SHELDUCK, nice to have some water back in there. No sign of any Wheatears/Whinchats in the pump field but 4 Meadow Pipits at the Start End were my first this autumn; there were 4 Linnets here also.
A quick trip just across the county border to Slough Sewage farm produced 3 Green Sandpipers, several Shoveler, Teal and a some Gadwall there. I then drove north of Burnham where scanning over part of Burnham Beeches produced a string of 32 Barn Swallows tracking south.
At Little Marlow GP there was a single Green Sandpiper on the spit with only a Kingfisher and 2 Common Terns also being of note. Couldn't see any Yellow Wags with the cattle by the river. (Dave Cleal)