Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Pochard at EGP

Surprised how much the ice had melted in the last 24 hours as the lake was 90% ice yesterday morning but by early this afternoon it only covered about 30% of the area, consequently many more waterbirds around today.

43 Canada Goose



1 male Pochard

43 Tufted Duck
2 Goldeneye (1 male & 1 juvenile)
6 Great Crested Grebe
2 Cormorant
3 Moorhen
28 Coot
16 Lapwing
c350 Black-headed Gull
70 Common Gull

Juvenile Great Northern Diver still present at Scammonden this afternoon, I watched it for over half an hour and during that period it uttered it's haunting call at least 6 times, absolutely magical!

3 comments:

Mike Henshaw said...

Excellent David. It shows how quickly things change in a couple of hours as I was heading back to the car when I saw the Buzzard at 1000am.

David Sutcliffe said...

A good count of Tufted there David, and to hear the GND calling at Scammonden was a real bonus.

David Tattersley said...

Great record with the Buzzard sighting Mike, I've only seen Buzzard once at this site, I bet it was the smell of your bacon butty that attracted it!.

The Tufted count is my highest of this winter so far, yesterday there were only 18 on a small patch of ice-free water accompanied by 2 Goldeneye, 6 Great Crested Grebe, 1 Little Grebe and 7 Coot. On the plus side the views were great as they had nowhere else to feed!