A lot of effort for little reward

Been trying my absolute hardest to find some decent county birds over the last week or two but despite several nice ish things, nothing really good to reward the effort.

On Sunday (17/11) myself, Dave, Jon & Kirsty headed up to the north of the county in the slim hope of finding some Crossbill species. So Wakerley Wood, one of the best places in the county for Crossbill was to be the first place to visit. Despite a huge stomp around we didnt see a massive amount. Best birds were a couple of flyover Crossbill, several vocal Ravens, a smattering of Siskins and 12 flyover Golden Plover.

Next we went onto nearby Blatherwyke Lake. Again nothing massively unusual here. The Mandarins were playing very hard to get but I did eventually find a pair perched up low down in a lake-side tree. An Egyptian Goose, plenty of Red Kites and lots of Wigeon and wildfowl in general were all that was to be seen. 
Blatherwyke church was certainly worth a visit, having had several Hawfinch there back in January. No Hawfinch, but was it was full of feeding birds with Redwings and Fieldfares everywhere and a sizeable flock of Greenfinch . Highlight here was a female Brambling and several Siskins.
We briefly paid a visit to Fermyn Woods CP before finishing the day at Stanwick GPs. Best birds were a couple of Redshank, Golden Plovers, a few Snipe and a handful of Yellow Legged Gull in the roost.

I paid a mid afternoon visit to Boddington Reservoir again on Tuesday 19/11 with the intention of having a look at the gull roost. Not a great deal to write home about however there were 5-6 Goosander and a single Little Grebe.

There were really good numbers of gulls, with hundreds of Black Headed & Common in particular. There were probably around 50 Lesser Black Backs, 10-15 Herring, 1 Great Black Backed & best of all, a very dapper looking adult Yellow Legged too.