Meteor and Goosanders

Gave up the comfort of a warm bed to be on the Dunsmore Ridge in the middle of the night looking for the annual Geminid meteor shower (peaks tonight but forecast is poor) then managed to survive the freezing conditions for another view of Mercury, Venus and Saturn just above the horizon before the mist started to develop.

By the time we arrived at the pond the clear sky’s and wintry sunshine had burnt off any mist over the pond though some still lingered in the valley. Disappointingly the only obvious cold weather movement was a few Goosander and a single Golden Plover. The Country Park had 22 Long-tailed Tit and 10 Bullfinch (16 recorded today on site) while 2 Chiffchaff were on the end of hensborough bank and 3 Lesser Redpoll near the scrape. Other birds of note were 4 Goldcrest, 2 Raven and of course the male Smew.