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An early morning walk started with a close view of a roe deer next to the motorway before we reached Stoke Park.

On the small pond there was a squabble between coots and moorhens – the coots seemed to be the aggressors but in their defence they did have chicks to protect.

We saw whitethroats and wrens in the swampy area.

The silhouette of a wren

Around the lake the Canada geese goslings are getting bigger very quickly but there were so many fishermen who had been camping overnight that we did not loiter especially as some were off to the bushes to relieve themselves. Sadly there were many signs of toilet paper around and about: I cannot blame the fishermen for all of this nor for the vast amount of litter that we saw in the park this morning but they clearly are culpable of some of the detritus.

Just a few examples of the large amount of detritus left in the park

A buzzard overhead was soon joined by a corvid which mobbed it.

We could hear green finches and goldfinches but I only managed to take lots of out-of-focus photos. I did manage one or two successful shots of long-tailed tits but I didn’t even get the two swifts that we saw in my viewfinder. Clearly too early in the morning for me.