On a little pond...

HI all,

I'm no longer a resident of Just Below The Plain, I'm now a resident of Just East of the Plain, and the A4 from Marlborough to Newbury is my new area of interest - currently, Kite Alley.

There's a little water meadow pond that interests me, and I've taken to stopping there of a lunch time with my camera. Yesterday I thought I saw some grey coloured wader sort of bird, so as I've never photographed anything like that, I had to spend part of my lunch break today trying to see if it would appear again. I didn't think it did, although I did see this instead, which I thought was a snipe (and apologies for all pix, these were a long way away on a very dull day):

My identification of course based on web research today - as this was my first sighting.

However, in this bad pic:

The legs seem too long to be a snipe. But then I thought, perhaps that's an optical illusion. Perhaps there's a reflection, or a piece of reed just where the legs are, and it only looks like it's got really long legs....

I shall leave it to my esteemed colleagues to decide.

And then there was this - again, something I've never seen before, but on checking the RSPB Bird Identifier, looked like a little grebe:

Except I realised I was looking at the pic on the RSPB site of the grebe in its summer finery, and we're only in Feb. Otherwise, little grebe it would be. Is it late enough in the year for them to be putting on their feathery finery?

Cheers
Steve