Bottoms Up!

What a mixed day it turned out to be. I arrived at Burton Mere with a huge long list of "possibles" to add to my list, but came away with only two new birds, both being photographed in very poor light. 
When I first arrived the sun was poking through but there was not much around of interest on the scrape so I headed up towards Bridge Pool where the pintails had been seen. Not much doing, apart from a load of teal, wigeon and a few stray waders, all of them being blipped before. Headed through the boardwalk and up to Inner Marsh Farm hide but again there was not much about apart from loads of lapwing and golden plover, who were scared by something, all took flight and did not return. 
Back up towards the sacrificial crop field in search of a brambling, but all I found was a load of linnets which was quite nice to see all the same. 
Back at the Bridge Pool and I scanned the water for my pintail and this time got lucky - there were at least 8 of them, all feeding furiously. However, by this time, the light was really bad and the ducks were really too far away on the other side of the pool. Therefore my blip is quite grainy, but I don't have anything better I'm afraid. I waited for nearly 45 minutes willing them to come closer, but they did not want to play and I got too cold to stay any longer!

My other option was a flock of whooper swans that dropped on the the scrape in front of the reception hide whilst I was getting warm , but they were not close enough either. 

Then I had the chance of a sparrowhawk as it swooped down to try and grab one of the finch flock that were on the feeders, but I was far too slow.
And finally I took a shot of a ringtail hen harrier, but it was too blurry. 

So all in all I am very pleased with what I saw, just not so pleased with the shots I got. The light was definitely against me today, but at least I added to my list - only 3 to go now :)