I left home after lunch for a spot of local birding. My first stop was Skipwith Common in the hope of seeing tree pipit and woodlark. Lots of vehicles in the car park.
It was nice to see the ponies but this is close to where I was hoping to see my target birds and there were lots of people having a picnic, so I left.
North Duffield Carr was my next stop. This is the field to the right of the path leading to the hides.
The field is full of buttercups and clover and other plants. My friend Chris had sent me a message to say that a male garganey was on the scrape in front of the Geoff Smith hide.
The bird was on the second island, quite a distance from the hide.
also on the scrape were 3 pairs of tufted ducks, who kept chasing each other about, a male shoveler
sedge warbler and whitethroat were busy hunting for food in front of the hide. After an hour I walked down to the last hide.
I could see 60 plus mute swans, lots of greylag geese, a few canada geese and the long staying whooper swan
Mallards were flying about and a few lapwings were chasing the carrion crows. Curlews were also calling as they flew around. I could see several little egrets but was not certain how many till later. After an hour I returned to the other hide. No birds were on the scrape.
Perhaps one of the reasons for the absence of birds was the fact that a family were in the next field fishing and having a picnic. I thought that there was no public access in this area. Across the river a dog walker had let their dog chase the sheep.
Then a helicopter flew low over the reserve and disturbed the birds.
The little egrets flew close together so I was able to count at least 15 of them. I then left for home.
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