short eared owl - Thorpe Marshes

short eared owl - Thorpe Marshes

Monday 13 February 2012

Patch ticks, a Smew, & a Goose!

Well a round up of what ive seen over the last 4 days! A few patch ticks were picked up on lunch break on Thursday. A rather smart Lesser Redpoll on the Alders at the bridge was quickly followed by a fly over Shelduck.
 The broad was practically frozen over accept for a Small hole in the middle and a huge amount of Teal, Gadwall and Tufted were all squeezed on to it. Interestingly a few Crows were on the ice pecking away frantically at something . This happened a few times in the time I watched em and I'm not entirely sure what it was all about but perhaps it was some insects or food that was stuck in there?
Crows -Dancing on ice!

  I managed a trip to Whitlingham on Friday lunch and then on the weekend too.The visit brought a nice sight, that of 3x Bullfinches near the conservation area path- good but brief views . Also 3x Siskins and fly over Snipe.
  I meet up with James and Adam on the weekend and was already watching the Dark Bellied Brent Goose before even jumping out of the van! A real poser and looking smart in among the white snow back drop. We searched through the huge flock of wildfowl on the little hole of water that hadn't frozen over. 4x Little Grebes, 4x Goldeneyes and a couple of dodgy looking tufteds!
A walk up to the east end of the Broad saw a huge number of Teal gathered up on the patch on Thorpe broad-James counted 250+, very impressive number. It was then that both the lads shouted out "Smew!".I looked up and watched as it flew over and dropped in to the hole of water back on the great broad . We picked it up on walk back later and also I spotted a rather smart Water Rail making its way along the reeds edge on the north side of the Whitlingham broad. A nice but cold mornings work!

Dark-Bellied Brent goose

Smew & 2x Goldeneye

Happy birding,
Shaky

No comments:

Post a Comment