Wednesday 17 November 2010

A poor day's birding and a good day's birding.

First the poor day's birding.

On Monday morning I went across to Brandon Marsh to find the weather sunny,calm and chilly.Headed straight to the Steetly hide to see if the Bittern was showing but after an hours stay I could not see it.The only bird of interest showing was the New Zealand Scaup and that was not very interesting.

An hour and a half 's stay in the Carlton hide produced a few Redwings and a lone Common Snipe and that was all.A quick look in the other hides revealed very little so I gave up and went home.

Now the good day's birding.

On Tuesday morning , having done some early shopping ,I decided to go across to Shustoke again and see if the Red-breasted Merganser was still about and , if so ,to try and get some decent shots this time.

Got there just after 10.00AM to find the place deserted except for one chap who was more interested in telling me about his knee operation than about the Merganser.

Having had to walk round the reservoir twice before finding it on Saturday I had mentally geared myself up for another long walk when , blow me down , I spotted it 50 metres out and I'd only walked a few metres from the car.I switched over to very patient mode and waited by the jetty which turned out to be good move as it stayed in the area for 40 minutes some times coming in pretty close.It then flew off to the NW corner of the reservoir.

Did get some better shots : -







2 comments:

midlands birder said...

does the green tinge to the mergansers head mean it is a 1st winter drake???
MB

Max Silverman said...

I'm the last person in the world to answer that.I think someone said it was a juvenile female but I could be wrong.