Birding Back in Essex

After the last few days chasing the birds around North Norfolk,i awoke about 9.30am after a good 10 hour stint in bed,job done.Nipper,who has a little cold like her daddy,had to be looked after by the man with the cold this morning as mummy had a driving lesson,so back to bed the pair of us went for an hour for what nipper calls "daddy cuddles".This basically involved her going back to sleep while i watched Tennis!!
A quick visit to the tip for me and Nipper when Alice got back saw a nice large Female Sparrowhawk hunting near the tip.I had no plans to go birding today as i had a bit of work at 1pm but it was only local and only took half hour or so,so i decided to look at the site i visited last week,the Thames Chase site in Launders Lane which is partly owned by an aggregate company.
It didn't start too well with nothing but a wood pigeon and a few black headed gulls over the gravel pit at the back,that is inaccesible i think(maybe with wellies i may try to forge a path).But then it started to get a bit more interesting.A Green Woodpecker was the first to show itself,followed by two Reed Buntings,male and female,then a Jay,these were all over the northern side of the site.The site is pretty tiny and just has two circular paths of which you could probably walk around in 20 minutes flat,but on entering the southern end of the site,i went down a small hill and immediatly found myself with views towards Cely wood in the East,another woodlands to the South East and a few fields ahead of me.

It was much busier this side,a small brook runs through by the trees,although i am led to believe that the fields in the picture above,above the trees will shortly be a golf course!! As if we don't have enough already.Overhead came a Common Buzzard,five minutes later another and a Kestrel was hunting in the nearby fields.2 Lesser Redpolls went over,probably nestling in one of the many immature alder trees that are on the site,i heard plenty of Wrens although only saw 1,robins,dunnocks and it was good to see Greenfinches seemed to be in abundance.12 Long Tailed tits were in with another mixed tit flock.Then,as i was talking to a dog walker a group of 45 Greylag geese came in,settled on the southern field,with them was a White front goose and a single Canada goose.They stayed around a while before being spooked by something,but i couldnt see anything,maybe a fox as i had seen a couple.Below is a picture of the distant geese in the field which is soon to become a golf course,they are above the bushes,good luck with trying to identify any of them lol,i will buy some camera equipment when i get some money lol

My final birds on site,were 4 Corn Buntings,these and Yellowhammers have been a bogey bird for me locally and in Norfolk so far this year and although the hammers have been reported on this site i failed to get them today,i left the site around 4.15pm and drove home,stopping briefly by Berwick Ponds to scan the reedbed in the hope of Bitterns,no luck but i did manage to connect with not 1 but 2 Yellowhammers,yay 2 year ticks in 15 minutes,takes my yearly total up to 158,kerching.Sometimes its the days like these,winter,sunny 11c and a not too promising site,that actually end up the better days,this was definatly one of them,just not quite in Norfolks league lol
Me and Nipper popped round to my mum and dads for an hour or so,where she slept,then came home so my little angel could throw cheerios all over the place!!!

Off to work in a minute once i have soaked myself for a while in the bath,may try to pop back over to Launders Lane in the morning before football,we could go top again tomorrow with a win,fingers crossed,up the Hornchurch