Not much to report from Saturday as we were
led on a wild duck chase after Alan and i had made it all the way to the Marsh
hide in a frozen Grove Ferry noting only 7 Marsh harriers. A call from Marc
Heath had us rushing (ell, fatsish walking) back to the car as the Scaup he had
found yesterday was showing charataristics of Lesser Scaup. Sadly however, by
the time we’d reached Westbere Marc and Brendan had discovered it was a hybrid.
A very smart looking bird nevertheless. On a return visit at midday with Brendan, amongst 4500 Herring Gulls i managed to locate a 1st winter Caspian Gull and shortly after Brendan found a drake Mandarin. Along with Brendan and Steve Ashton we
headed back to Stodmarsh where we witnessed the final 15 minutes of a Foxes
life as it struggled, unsucsesfully, to climb out of a hole in the ice it had
fallen through.
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| Last efforts of a dying Fox |
Today, Sunday, meeting McChidders in the 6
inch deep snow in Stodmarsh carpark at 6.40 this morning after driving through
virgin fresh snow in the surrounding villages with nothing but animal
tracksbreaking the smooth blanket of white.From Stod car park we made our way
to the LakeTower Hide to watch Harrier, and anything else, out of roost hearing
a Tawny Owl as we left while a Woodcock flew over us near the Alder Wood. The
lake was almost completley frozen over and yesterdays drowned Fox was just
visible below a thin covering of ice. Several Water Rails and Cetti’s Warblers
were making their presence known and at least 2000 Feildfares passed over head
while 10 Marsh Harriers left roost along with 1 ringtail Hen Harrier. There
were 86 shoveler, 85 Teal, 3 Tufted Duck, several Mallard and 3 Great
Black-backed Gulls in and around the small bit of open water, 22 Canada Geese
flew south over the lake and a single Ruff landed on the ice with 112 Lapwing.
We decided to leave Stodmarsh and return to Westbere where the bulk of the
activity had been yesterday passing high numbers of Blackbirds along the
roadside enroute. At Westbere there were 3 Water Rails, 22 Pintail, 1 darke
Mandarin, 3 redhead Smew and 3 Little Grebes. Among the concentration of Duck
(Brendan made the counts!) there Tufted Duck, Pochard, the aythya hybrid (tuftedxpochard) Gadwall, 66 Wigeon and 3 Goldeneye
including 2 drakes. Also on the lake were 7 Great-crested Grebes, 10 Greylag
Geese and 14 Canada Geese. A Woodcock flew over the lake towards Fordwich and a
Marsh Harrier passed over and there were a lot less Gulls today with no sign of
yesterdays 1st winter Caspian. A phone call from Brendan, who was on
the island on the other side of the lake, informed us of a Black-necked Grebe
not far from us and with a detour onto a fishing swim managed to connect with
this delightful little Grebe. We carried on past the water meadows where we
encountered 4 Curlew and when we reached the tidal lake at the Gaps there were
3 Dunlin, 1 Shelduck, 40 flyover Skylarks, 2 Kingfishers and as we were heading
back to the cars a redhead Goosander flew over as we passed between Westbere
and Fordwich.
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| Wigeon |
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| Distant Black-necked Grebe |
