BTD

Having spent the evening observing Jupiter and her moons near the Hyades open cluster I woke to the delightful sight of Venus very close to a slender crescent moon.

Unfortunately as is typical of this time of year visibility in the Grandborough valley was the opposite of my garden being down to 30 meters in places so Dave and I failed to find any owls. The pond was shrouded in mist which was burning off pretty quickly in places but by the time we had reached toft bay and had seen sweet FA we were thinking of giving up when a Black-throated Diver flew in and headed for biggen bay. Just our luck it decided at the last minute to continue further on and landed near the valve tower and become shrouded in the last slow clearing fog bank. Had to wait nearly an hour for visibility to improve and despite extensive searching we failed to re-locate it.

Bob Hazel had a BTD briefly on the 2^nd November which I presume was the one that appeared at Stanford Reservoir on the 3^rd and 4^th but no reports since so it could be circulating the area.

The only other birds of note was the Black-necked Grebe near M buoy, 50 Meadow Pipits and the unusual sight of a Great-crested Grebe on the grassy side of farborough bank when we first arrived.

Although we arrived at the Long Itch Diner later than usual the prompt service soon had us back out in the field in record time though all we found was 15 Raven, 2 Buzzard and a Peregrine on Napton on the Hill before the news of a Little Bunting in the county buggered up many a birders Sunday roast.

Great-crested Grebe pitched up on farborough bank