More Aythya Action North Duffield

Spent the majority of the day at North Duffield Carrs today. Woke to find an inch or so of snow on the deck and had an enjoyable walk with the dogs noting fox, badger, roe deer, rabbit, pheasant and a host of small bird prints in the fresh snow. The hedges were busy with Fieldfare and a flock of 5 or 6 Bullfinch and a couple of Reed Bunting were noted.

Down at the hide I met up with Jono, Chris and Ollie to tales of Cetti's Warblers and Sea-Eagles that I'd missed! The Aythya hybrid/Lesser Scaup thing came close at one time but I only saw it from behind and didn't see the bill clearly enough, the bird did do one wing flap as it was facing away from us, this did look pretty good for Lesser Scaup! (see part 1 of the story so far here, part 2 here).

Chris and Ollie left and Jono picked out another Aythya asleep with a group of distant Pochard, this immediately looked like a much larger bird than the other Aythya and (after making sure we could see the both of them at the same time!) were happy there was definitely two Aythyas present - once this bird put its head up it was clear it was a Greater Scaup (looked like the bird I had last Friday).

Over the course of the day I could only manage a couple of record shots on my phone of the two birds above, though neither are very good as the birds were still distant but you can kind-of make out the differences.

Greater Scaup (phone-scoped)

Aythya Hybrid/Lesser Scaup bird (phone-scoped)

Not long after Ollie and Chris had left the hide we got some phone calls from them informing us that they'd got some Waxwing in the car park. We went straight round (a good job we did too as they were flushed by a truck, flew off and weren't seen again!!). Again, just the following record shots.

Waxwing record shot

Three of the Waxwing

Other wildfowl recorded down there today included Great Crested Grebe (my first here this winter), Little Grebe, 300+ Tufted Duck, 100 Pochard, 100 Pintail, 5000+ Teal/Wigeon, 68 Whooper Swans, 200 Mallard, 5 Shoveler, 25 Goldeneye, 5 Gadwall, 5 Shelduck, 40 Mute Swan, 30 Coot, 6 Moorhen and as dusk approached 'the' pair of Bewick's Swans flew in.

Waders included Lapwing, Ruff, Golden Plover, Redshank, Dunlin and Snipe.  Raptors included Barn Owl, Marsh Harrier, Kestrel and 2 Buzzard. There was quite a few Meadow Pipit, Fieldfare, Redwing, Pied Wagtail and Robin about and several Long-tailed Tit visited the feeders.

The Robin was nice and obliging, allowing me to sort out next years Christmas card!

Robin

Robin

Robin

Long-tailed Tit

Aythya Hybrid at North Duffield

So it turns out that the drake 1st winter Lesser Scaup or possible Aythya hybrid at North Duffield that was found by Tim and Chris yesterday, that I saw at lunchtime yesterday (details here) is in fact a hybrid, as was pretty much considered yesterday. Unfortunately.

Ollie, Tim, Jack, Chris and a few others were down early doors and I gather the bird was showing a bit better (closer maybe) and in better light etc.  It was seen to have too much black on the bill, which was a shame! I think Tim has some pictures of the duck so keep an eye on his blog for these, certainly an educational bird...

I think the two Bewick Swans were still about but nothing too different from what I reported yesterday, though I hear a few Goosanders flew through and there were two Marsh Harriers and a Peregrine around too.

Pretty heavy snow here at the moment so will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow... dreaming of a Smew...

Lesser Scaup North Duffield???

An interesting lunch-hour in the Geoff Smith Hide at North Duffield Carrs today. Not a particularly straightforward one.... enjoyable, frustrating, awesome, nightmare... all of the above...

Got a call from Tim saying he and Chris had got an interesting duck (either a Lesser Scaup or Hybrid Aythya sp), it was perfect timing as it was lunchtime so I shot across to be greeted by a distant Aythya species on a bit of water that was not totally frozen over (unlike the rest of the area which was frozen solid). It was an interesting bird, but due to a combination of poor visibility and distance the ID couldn't be 100% certain. Tim's written a brief description of the bird here and will go looking for it again tomorrow.

There was a huge number of birds present in the centre of the Ings, all concentrated around the small open area of water. I didn't have time to count anything but estimates of numbers follow: 300+ Tufted Ducks, 100 Pochard, 15+ Goldeneye, 100 Pintail, hundreds of Mallard, Wigeon and Teal. Lots of geese (Canada and Grey-lag), none of the recently reported White-fronted Geese that were mentioned in the log book!

A Green-winged Teal briefly appeared on the river in front of the hide before flying to the near side riverbank and out of sight, joined quickly by hundreds of Common Teal and Wigeon.  A pair of Bewick's Swans flew in and landed on the water. Again, one of these birds was the darvic-ringed bird - see here for some details on this bird (more will come soon too). At least 60 Whooper Swan flew onto the river too.

Tim and Chris mentioned that they'd had a Marsh Harrier and Peregrine Falcon prior to my arrival and just before I left Tim picked up a distant harrier coming in from the northwest - a sub-adult male Hen Harrier!!! It gently glided towards Aughton. Amazingly my second Hen Harrier in the recording area in less than 2 weeks! I wonder if this was the bird Arnie found back in late November/early December!

I'm now looking forward to being able to spend the weekend birding locally to see if I can re-locate the Green-winged Teal, if we can suss out the Aythya duck (will leave that to Tim!). However, news this morning of a Hawfinch in the north of the recording area, along with the Iceland Gull at Rufforth tip are going to make for a busy time!

This morning was incredibly cold (as it was for most of the day) so I took a couple of scenic shots of the local dog-walking patch on my phone (below). A few thrushes (Blackbird, Redwing, Fieldfare, Song Thrush) were noted, but not much else. Did have a couple of Tree Sparrow in the garden today which was nice!

Sunrise down my lane!

The dogs enjoying the ice and snow