Thursday October 27 - Another jammy tick

Once the early morning rain had subsided I headed back to Lower Bittell Reservoir for another shot at the Pochard. It remains unseasonably mild, and the grey clouds largely dissuaded me from getting the camera out.

I reached the usual spot on the canal bank, strolling past a very tame drake Mandarin on the way, and started scanning the reservoir. The Whooper Swan was still present, in exactly the same spot. However, it soon became apparent that there were fewer ducks than on my last visit, and crucially no Pochard.

Passerines were flying over regularly, identified on call; Redpoll, a party of Siskins, 25 Fieldfares which were moving purposefully east, and a few Redwings. At some point I heard what I took to be another Redwing, and after delaying for a couple of seconds dragged myself away from the scope to look up. To my complete surprise the only bird I could see was a large chunky finch with a strongly undulating flight. There was a flick of white in the wings and I realised it was a Hawfinch. I quickly took in the short tail and swung my scope around to try to get onto it as it continued eastwards (in my tweet I said south, but since looking at a map I have realised the dam faces east/west). I couldn't relocate it though.

I cannot be 100% sure that the "seep" call I heard was made by the bird and not by a passing Redwing, but they do make a Redwing-like call, so it probably was. Although I wish I'd looked up a couple of seconds earlier, its incredibly lucky that I glanced up at all as I was fully expecting to see just a Redwing.

I set out to walk around the roads which circle most of Lower Bittell, and then decided to head up to the Upper reservoir, which is outside my circular "patch" with the intention of seeing the Tundra Bean Goose which I have been ignoring since it first turned up in August. 

I found two Bittell stalwarts, Chris T and Rob W, and large numbers of ducks and gulls. Eventually around 100 geese flew in, but the Bean Goose wasn't with them. Chris picked out an adult Yellow-legged Gull, and Rob drew my attention to that pesky Pochard feeding distantly and showing no signs of wanting to head to Lower Bittell. The female Pintail I saw on Tuesday was also present. It's clear that Upper Bittell is far superior to Lower Bittell for birds.

On the way back it started to drizzle a bit, and I thought I'd better get the camera out to make sure this wasn't an unillustrated post.

All the swans in this shot are Mutes

Anyway, the #LocalBigYear list has now advanced to 138 species, and I'm closing in on my target 140.