North Duffield Carrs

 

Having driven through some heavy rain showers on my way to the reserve I was relieved to be able to walk to Garganey hide not only in the dry but sunny weather. The water levels have dropped since my last visit, so more land for the waders. Despite the fact that the birds have more land on which to stand, they were all on the river side of the reserve, and none near the farm. Had they been disturbed?

Still lots of wigeon, pintail, teal, shoveler and mallard. About 30 tufted ducks, 1 goldeneye and 2 gadwall.

Wader wise there were lots of lapwings, probably about a thousand, 30 dunlin, 7 redshank, 2 ruff, 3 black-tailed godwits and 2 curlew. The curlew numbers increased to 14 just before I left the hide.

A pair of mute swans came to the bund to preen, one of them is wearing a red ring.

A pair of pintail also came onto the bund.

They soon moved when this cormorant landed near them.

A marsh harrier flew over and disturbed the birds including the waders, and 2 curlews landed on the bund.

After a couple of hours I walked back to the Geoff Smith hide.

More land around the scrape but no sign of the mute swans which looked as if they might be attempting to build a nest. A single moorhen and a pair of mallard were the only birds on the scrape. Elaine was in the hide with  her"hearing dog", and neither of us could see the usual pair of stonechats.

A hare appeared on the right hand side of the scrape.

Then another appeared on the other side of the fence, so they approached each other

had a short chase and then they went off in different directions. A pleasant 4 hours and 38 birds on my day list.