Back at North Duffield

I popped across to North Duffield Carrs this afternoon to check out the floods. They seem to have decreased slightly (only slightly). A few more previously submerged bushes were just about visible. Garganey Hide was still fully underwater and the flood still lapping at the bottom of the Geoff Smith Hide.

There was a lot of wildfowl however they were difficult to count accurately as they were very flighty, mainly due to the presence of wildfowlers/shooters on the edge of North Duffield village.

I met a guy in the car park who informed me that there was a Bewick Swan at North Duffield/within the LDV according to an article within the Yorkshire Post. I've not seen the article, but none of the local birders that I've spoken to know anything about it so not sure how reliable the report is - would be interested to know who's claimed it... where/when etc...

There is a large flock of Mute and Whooper Swans in the valley at present, but these were far to distant today from the Geoff Smith Hide to look through properly. May be best to look off Thorganby viewing platform.

The best I could manage today was 1 Little Grebe (possibly the same bird seen distantly last weekend? This time it was 6 ft in front of the hide! A bonus of the flood!), 1 drake Goldeneye which swiftly flew off, 5 Shelduck, 1 female Tufted Duck, 2 Pintail, 4 Shoveler, 500 Teal, 300 Wigeon, 100 Mallard, 10 Gadwall. I didn't see any raptors/owls of note as far as I can remember. A few flocks of Lapwing flew southeast, one flock had a single Ruff in with them.

This morning a walk round the local area produced lots of Redwing and Fieldfare and a mixed finch flock contained Greenfinch, Linnet, Goldfinch, Chaffinch and some Brambling.