Bittern & Two Flavours of Scaup

Sunday 23rd November 2008

A cold day with showers, but plenty of brighter, sunny spells made for quite a pleasant day - made all the more pleasant by some good birds. Sightings at WWT Slimbridge included 11 Bewick's Swans on the roadside fields, a Bittern was still showing at Zeiss Hide at 9.40pm and I managed to get some views before it soon melted back into the reeds, plus a singing Cetti's Warbler here, four Lesser Redpolls (above) were feeding on the Alders at South Finger, while the thousands of birds on the Tack Piece included four Ruffs, 16 Bewick's Swans, (probably including the 11 seen earlier on the roadside fields), 43 White-fronted Geese, 90 Dunlins and a Black-tailed Godwit.

Photo above: Wigeon on the Tack Piece, WWT Slimbridge

I stopped off at Frampton on the way back to look at the immature male Lesser Scaup on Court Lake (photo below), which was still present, as were three (Greater) Scaup (bottom photo) including an immature male (thanks to Nick Goatman and John Martin for that). My County year list now stands at 206.

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