Office birding again (and Cornwall)

Its been a while since I last posted, mainly due to two reasons, I have seen no new birds on the patch and........I've been to lazy to keep up to date! All my local patch birding has again been done down at the beach near work but it has sadly been lacking in quality. The 15th had the unusal sight of a Grey Heron sat on the beach, the 17th had a bit of passage going south, 100+ Cormorants, 20+ Brent Geese, 2 Common Scoter and 10+ Med Gulls while on the 18th there was a bit of duck passage, 75 Wigeon, 2 Common Scoter, 12 Teal and 3 RB Mergansers (patch tick) all flew south.

On the 25th my office moved briefly to Reading, Red Kites from the train making the journey bearable. Since I was almost there (4 hours away) I decided to take a long weekend in SW Cornwall. NOt much birding was done and too much drinking but I did get out on Sunday and walked from Marazion to Drift Reservoir.
It was very cold and Marazion marsh was frozen, pushing out 40+ Snipe into the open and a Bittern made a brief appearance. Several Chiffchaffs feed busily, mainly at Long Rock pool and along the path on the eastern side of the marsh. Also along that path I found two Firecrests, almost a guaranteed spot for them in winter when I lived down there.
Out in the bay several divers were quite distant but I managed to pin down 2 BT, 1 GN Diver and a Slav Grebe. A Swallow hawked over the beach, hopefully stocking up before fleeing the snow that came the day after.
The walk along the coast to Penzance was pretty uneventful with a small flock of Common Scoter offshore and three Black Redstarts on the rocks as you enter PZ. Walking along Penzance Prom I picked up half a dozen Purple Sands on the beach and a Kingfisher flew past. Another Kingfisher was feeding in Newlyn Harbour and another Slav was out at sea just off the harbour.
I finished the day at Drift Reservoir and managed to pick out the BN Grebe that had been reported.
Kingfisher (honest)

Firecrest

Number 3OV2