Just to show that it's not only Ian & Keith who report from Branton, Jane & I took an hour's stroll round the ponds this quiet, cold Sunday morning. Inevitably we came across Stewart & John and spotted Hugh Tindle. But on the bird front we were rewarded with 28 species and that was without really trying.
The stars had to be the two female Scaup with the largish group of Tufted Duck on the east pond, but there were at least six Goosander, and a similar number of Goldeneye, plus four Shelduck, along with the decent numbers of Teal, Wigeon and Mallard. A surprising lack of geese, with just a trio of Greylag.
Off the water there were no large flocks of anything, but ones and twos of a range of passerines, including Yellowhammer, Redpoll, Long-tailed Tit and Siskin.
Botanically the only point of interest was that some of the Alders are already showing ripening male catkins.
Good to see you got the Scaup,they must be the same birds someone saw towards the end of December
ReplyDeleteNice morning at Branton this morning, apologies for not name checking Jane and yourself in my post Richard, it is a popular site with AWG members is Branton... those Scaup and the Duck generally were really nice..
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