Arriving at Westbere lake at 6.30 this
morning i made my way to the island to search through the Gulls in hope of
relocating the Iceland Gull that had been seen the previous afternoon. Almost
all the lake was frozen over except a small patch to the south west of the
island that had 5 or 600 gulls on plus Coots and Ducks of which there were 112
Tufted Duck, 60 Pochards, the aythya hybrid Pochard x Tufted, a Little Grebe
and 2 Goldeneye one being a fine drake. Joined by Marc Heath and Brendan Ryan
we finished on the island and made our way to the river where we wandered to
Fordwich before retracing our steps and carrying on to the Gaps at Hersden. No
matter how hard we searched there was no sign of the Red-necked Grebe seen on Thursday
but, at least 8 Little Grebes were seen and along with several Teal and Tufted
Duck had 5 or 6 views of probably 2 Kingfishers as well as 3 redhead Smew.
There were 2 Curlew on the Westbere Water meadows as well as 1 Stonechat and 2
Grey Herons. A couple of Crossbills flew over calling nearer to Fordwich and Great
Tits were seen in good numbers as well as two more drake Goldeneye at Fordwich.
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| Gadwall |
At Hersden there were 2 Shelduck, 7 Goosanders including 3 drakes, 1 Bittern
looking a little forlorn on the edge of the ice plus 12 Pintail. Water Rails
were seen and heard and after Marc had left Brendan and I along with Sue Morton
made our way out to a fishing swim to scan through the now much larger
gathering of Gulls. The three of us spent a good 45 minutes going through a
minimum of 4500 Herring Gulls that included 2 adult Lesser Black-backs but
could not relocate yesterdays Iceland Gull. The open water was getting larger
and there were a lot more duck present including Pochard, Tufted (hybrid),
Gadwall, Shoveler and Mallard while 3 drake Goosanders flew over towards
Fordwich.
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| Tufted Ducks and a Pochard |
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| Song Thrush |
On the way how I stopped in at Stodmarsh hoping to catch up with the
five Tundra Bean Geese that were still present yesterday seen by Sue. There was
a large flock of Chaffinches along the roadside between Collard’s and Stodmarsh
Court Farm but, alas, no Brambling with them and I finally got to see the
Little Owl that suns itself on the fallen tree at Stodmarsh Court Farm.
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| Little Owl |
Parking
on the ice rink that is Stodmarsh NNR car park I made my way along the Lampen Wall
to look at the near fully frozen lake where needless to say there was no sign
of any Bean Geese but there were 14 Canada Geese and 6 Greylags amongst the
gathered Mallard, Teal and Shoveler.