Brandon Marsh Starling Roost

Catching up with a blog entry that I should have input last week - Myself and the Capt made a long overdue visit to Brandon Marsh late afternoon on Saturday to view the Starling roost.  We arrived at about 3:30pm and took the long route to the East Marsh hide clocking a good size flock of Lesser Redpoll en route.  East Marsh hide was fairly full of birders and photographers for that time of day admiring the Redhead Smew and Water Rails bobbing in and out of the reeds.  A fine looking Green Woodpecker was also on one of the islands.  As dusk descended we made our way to the Carlton hide and decided to go a bit further to the new screen and waited for the starling show to commence.  We waited and then waited some more and then waited a bit longer but nothing emerged except for a poor show of about 50 birds who descended into the reeds pretty quickly.  The only other point of interest was a miserable looking Barn Owl who popped out of its box then decided to clamber back in a few minutes later.