The Deskbound Birder: December 2016

Friday, 23 December 2016

Slimbridge WWT - 10th December

We had the weekend at our cottage in the Cotswolds and on Saturday I spent the morning at Slimbridge. The weather was pretty atrocious and so my time was spent dashing between hides. I paused at the Asia collection for a few moments and couldn't resist taking a couple of images of two species I had recently seen on the Birdquest China Wetlands trip but which eluded decent photographs so here are a couple of gratuitous images of Falcated Duck and Baer's Pochard.

Falcated Duck - Slimbridge WWT

Baer's Pochard - Slimbridge WWT

In the south hide there were good numbers of Herring Gull and Black-headed Gull with five Lesser Black-backed Gull. Approximately 11 Snipe and 350 Lapwing were also present. I wandered up to the Zeiss Hide, here there were very large numbers of Lapwing, Pintail, Wigeon and Teal and around 600 Golden Plover - quite an impressive sight. There were also 12 Ruff showing distantly from the hide. Six Barnacle Goose showed distantly but I couldn't locate any White-fronted Goose - numbers have declined at this site significantly. I then headed to the hides at the Rushy Pen where a winter plumage Little Stint was showing distantly - its not often that I have seen this plumage in the UK. A total of 25 Bewick's Swan were present on Rushy Pen and it was good to get close views of these birds.

Herring Gull (2nd Winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Herring Gull (3rd winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Lesser Black-backed Gull (adult winter) - Slimbridge WWT

Pintail - Slimbridge WWT

Bewick's Swan - Slimbridge WWT

Thursday, 15 December 2016

Pennington Marsh and Cattle Egret at Marchwood - 14th December

After dropping Tobias at school I had a couple of hours to kill before a bird survey at Marchwood so I popped to Pennington Marsh in beautiful sunny conditions. I spent a fair bit of time at the corner of Lower Pennington Lane before heading to the car park and walking to Efford Lagoon before heading out to the seawall, past Butts Lagoon and back past Fishtail lagoon. There were a lot of birds around especially on the Pennington Marshes floods with 100's of Teal, Wigeon, Lapwing, Shoveler and Pintail. High up was a flock of around 500 Golden Plover, these put on a spectacular show as they dropped in overhead and onto the marshes. Judging by their height I guessed that they had probably travelled a great distance to get here. On the grasslands at the campsite was a flock of around 200 Brent Goose which showed well in the beautiful morning light. Along the seawall the tide was very high and the wader roost on the saltings was inundated forcing the multitude of Dunlin, Knot and Grey Plover to fidget and lift in spirals of swirling birds. Two Bearded Tit flew over the reedbeds high to the west pining as they went. It was a lovely morning and I wished I could have stayed longer.

Brent Goose - Pennington Marshes

Lapwing - Pennington Marshes

Cormorant - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover - Pennington Marshes

Golden Plover and Lapwing - Pennington Marshes

Snipe - Pennington Marshes

After my bird survey a drove up Marchwood Lane in Marchwood and noticed a flock of Little Egret in the field. I swore that one had a yellow bill but at 40 miles an hour it was hard to be sure so a quick U-turn and I was watching my first ever self-found Cattle Egret feeding with a flock of 12 Little Egret. I was pretty chuffed with this despite the species becoming progressively more common as the years pass.