New bird blow out!
Birding is all about opportunities. Sometimes they are fortunate, sometimes they are happy and other times they big, but every now and then they are missed and fleeting. Sadly, this falls squarely in the last two examples...
I was in town shopping with the family when Martin Wood tweeted that he'd seen a large number of Pintails over at Longham. If you're not aware, Pintails are incredibly dainty ducks, which are typically identified (on the males at least by they're long tails). "I'll go tomorrow", I told myself and thought no more of it.
 |
| There were plenty of Teal about on the lake but no Pintails. |
I reached Longham around 8.20 on Sunday morning and paid little attention to the car park as I wanted to find those ducks.I reached the south island and eagerly scanned it for the large number of Pintails that had been spotted there the previous day. Damn, nothing. Oh wait up, there's a small group of Wigeon mixed in with a small group of Teal. Bird one of the day.
Walking up the cause I paused briefly to marvel at 12 Little Egrets which had been flushed by a dog walker. Joining them was a Great White Egret , making it the largest flock of Egrets I've seen here in the last few years.
 |
| No Pintail, but I did spot some Wigeon. |
I scoured the bag area of the fields where there was a large number of Mute Swans (30) and around 60 Canada Geese with the odd Greylag thrown in for good measure. I tried scouring the flock for rarities, but my binoculars weren't really up to the task. I crossed the stile and tried to get a little closer and saw a Dunnock, my first of the year. I then found a small flock of Long-Tailed Tits, with a straggling Goldcrest following them. I excitedly went to take a picture of it but I couldn't focus as it was too close. Darn.
I walked around the back of North lake in the hope of Water Rails and Bullfinchs, but despite careful searching I found neither. I did flush a Wagtail, but it was too low to see what sort it might be. As I approached the style that leads to Green Lane two Collard Doves alighted on a telegraph pole. I then located the wagtail and was delighted to discover it was a Grey Wagtail, so that was another new bird.
 |
| I saw plenty of Wood Pigeons, as well as these two Collard Doves. |
I approached the open field by the boathouse, hoping for a Green Woodpecker, but the pastures where relatively empty. I did spy a Buzzard on one of the fence posts on the second field, making it my first raptor of the year. It had been lightly raining all morning and I began to head back to the car park, but something made me head to the causeway again. I passed blackbirds, great tits and chaffinches and spotted the odd Magpie and Carrion Crow, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
I had a moment of excitement on the causeway as I thought I had located a Water Rail moving along the bushes, but after much scanning it turned out to be a Song Thrush. I checked the island again, but the Pintails were still nowhere to be seen, so I continued my walk and found a solitary male Reed Bunting halfway up the causeway.
 |
| A poor photo of a well-hidden Reed Bunting. |
As I reached the back field I found a pair of Stonechat and willed them to fly closer so I could get a half decent picture. Sadly, they did not oblige. After a while I strolled across the back of South lake where I spotted what I think are Roe Deer. I've never seen them before and didn't even realise they were local, which made for a nice treat. There was a small group of herring gulls on the lake, including a couple of Great Black-Backed Gulls, my tenth and final birds for the day.
As I headed back to the car park a small duck flew over me which may have been a male pintail but it flew too far out into the lake for me to check it with my binoculars. I really need to consider saving up for a scope of some description...
TOTAL BIRDS SEEN = 50
I've had a few requests about not finishing the post with a long list of every bird seen so far, so I'll look at a new way of doing this going forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment