What a beautiful, eerie day it has been. Although we started with a fair bit of rain, that soon cleared away, but the mist was down to stay. It taunted us a couple of times by showing us glimpses of clear blue sky above, but then it would close in again so that even though we could hear whooper swans and geese flying around us above the carpark, we couldn't see them at all. A little later we did see a small flock of 9 whooper swans on the ice at swamp lochan. With over 50 on the ice at the beginning of the week I'm hoping we will start to see a bit more of them now.
A single mute swan can be seen from the path a little after East hide when walking towards Kirriemuir, along with a few mallard, and the occasional moorhen. A flock of mallard and wigeon have also been feeding at the west end, along with 4 greylag geese.
We also saw a nice flock of long tailed tits today, and a few reed buntings were darting about in the reeds. Bullfinches and siskins are still seen frequently, and there were 2 great spotted woodpeckers seen on Monday.
Over the last few days the paths have been extremely icy again, but by the end of the day today there were signs of a slight thaw.