24th Jan - frost last night, mist#haze clearing to sunny day/high cloud, light breeze, 7C

I popped to Stanford res this morning and was surprised to find it was 90% frozen over, the birds were pushed in to 4 small ice free areas.  Having said that, clearly many birds have moved off to other waters, I'm sure they will be back very soon, but some were putting up with it.

13 Little Egret were perched up in the water side trees, with a few Grey Heron to keep them company.

About 40 Goosanders, 35 Shoveler, 25 Teal, 15 Goldeneye plus Pochard, Wigeon, Tufted Duck and Mallards were present on the free water. The mixed flock of Canada and Greylag Geese were around too. A single Little Grebe ventured out of the reeds for a while.  A Kingfisher flew long the side and settled above the free water hoping for a catch.  36 Lapwing were sitting on the ice roosting.

A number of the usual Gulls were in, one a Common Gull had a white colour ring, I could read 3 of the letters, but not the fourth - NN0?  I will try to see if it is possible to find the ringing area.

A Muntjac was feeding in the neighbouring field, it spotted me and just stayed looking in my direction, they are getting brave.

After lunch I decided to see if any gulls were at the Shawell lagoons, again these were mostly frozen over, but this does not matter for the Gulls as they fed at the nearby landfill.  There was about 300 Gulls present, mostly Black-headed and Common Gulls, the larger Gulls were few.  Unfortunately, no colour rings were found and no rarer Gulls either.

But, a good number of Teal (125), Wigron (99) and Lapwings (c400) were present.  With the Lapwings there were 3 Golden Plover, this was good as they tend not to visit the lagoons too often but stay on the fields with the Lapwing.