Today's local walk gave, yet again, point blank views of the heron in the flattened reeds; taking my eyes off it for a few seconds meant that I missed its lunch. Just some 'licking of lips' and a bulge in its throat!! Elsewhere a tree had been cut down since yesterday and the general tramping down of vegetation around it gave Blackbird and Robin some more feeding opportunities but opened up the views into which popped a silent Water Rail, the first I've seen here since December 2017 and, unsurprisingly, a year tick. The Pochards from yesterday had decamped elsewhere but the semi-resident drake Gadwall popped out, tempted by a family of duck-feeders with a bag of grain.
Slightly more surprising was a brood of fourteen 1-day-old Mallard chicks - I'm guessing the earliest I've ever seen.
