North Duffield Carrs

 Monday March 10th

I arrived about 1130 after doing several jobs at home. I was also a little concerned as to how good visibility was going to be due to the early morning mist. I recognised 3 of the vehicles in the car park and called in at the Geoff Smith hide and had a chat with Alan (duffbirder.blogspot.com) and Haydn, until I made way for 2 other birders to sit in the hide.

As I strolled down to the garganey hide I could hear and then saw my first skylark of the year. Soon after that sighting, my first chiffchaff of the year kept flying down the path in front of me. When I reached the set aside field I saw reed buntings, yellowhammers and blackbirds.

Pete was already in the hide and when I sat down facing the farm and opened the window, the cold north wind started to blow in. So after a few minutes I moved the the other side of the hide.

Lots of pintail, shovelers, teal, wigeon, canada and greylag geese on the water and for a change a large number of pink footed geese, which I guess were slowly moving west before flying north. Lots of mute swans, and Pete told me that he had seen about 70 whoopers on the farmland to the south of the reserve.

Through my scope I was able to see lapwing, about 100 dunlin, 1 ruff, 12 redshanks and several curlew. There were a few black-tailed godwits but I was unable to count them.

The godwits flew off when this marsh harrier started hunting. It appeared to have found something and was eating near this exposed bit of vegetation. The birds settled down for a while then shoveler and teal came a little closer to the hide.

Then this pale buzzard appeared.

It landed on the top of one of the bushes and was looking around when this crow started to attack it. It then flew down towards the ground and disturbed the wildfowl as it flew across part of the reserve.

The birds settled down again until a darker buzzard appeared and flew along the river bank.

There were three buzzards interacting on the top of the river bank. They disturbed the waders and most of the curlew flew off. The lapwing and dunlin remained and were joined by about 100 golden plover.

It was now nearly 2pm and I decided to walk back to the Geoff Smith hide.

The white spot is a mute swan sitting on its nest. Its partner was keeping a pair of canada geese off the scrape. It would be nice if there was a bit of mud around the edge of the scrape for waders.

The swan woke up and did a bit of nest building before going off to feed.

The pale coloured buzzard appeared.

It stayed on top of one of the bushes for several minutes before flying off and disturbing some shelducks.

A large flock of wigeon flew west across the scrape closely followed by another.

A peregrine was chasing them and they all flew towards the garganey hide. A marsh harrier and the peregrine had a brief skirmish before the peregrine chased most of the birds over towards the far end of the reserve. Pete joined me in the Geoff Smith hide for a few minutes before we both went home.