Lower Derwent Valley

 

I waited till after 10pm before setting out this morning, so that any problems on the roads would hopefully have been sorted out. I took the above photo from the viewing platform at Thorganby. I joined Graham who was scoping the area. He had started out at East Cottingwith and was slowly working his way around the valley to Wheldrake. From the various places he had stopped at there was no sign of the white-tailed eagle.

There was a steady flow of birds up and down in front of us and before long I had seen my first whooper swans, canada geese and pied wagtail of the year. Lots of corvids were having an arguement to our right.

I left soon after Graham, satisfied with my list of 20 birds.

The viewing platform at North Duffiled was my next stop.

From here you can look up river and I could see that most of the ducks were on the river.

Marsh harriers were active

They slowly pushed the ducks towards me.

The majority of the birds were wigeon with a few teal. Once the marsh harrier had flown off they went back to their original place  further up river.

Lots of fieldfares in the bushes.

Garganey hide is now visible.

This is my view from it.

Just solid ice with a single black-headed gull and several carrion crows on it. Pieces of ice were clinging to the fence posts.

Every now and rhen there would be a large cracking noise as the ice moved. I returned to the Geoff Smith hide from where I was able to add dunlin, dunnock and snipe to my day list. If my understanding of the weather forecast is correct then perhaps some of the ice may melt and there might be open water on the reserve, which might attract the wildfowl.