14 January 2018

Long Tailed Duck + Newton St Loe

Date: 14/01/2018
Location: Barrow Tanks-Chew Valley-Newton st Loe
Weather: Grey skies all day
Species Highlights: 
Long Tailed Duck, Cattle Egret, Goldeneye, Goosander, Greenfinch
Observation: 
The Long Tailed duck had been showing from Barrow Tanks nr Bristol airport so me & Lauren headed off with high hopes, on arriving the skies were grey and overcast but found the bird within a few minutes of looking on number 1 reservoir.


The reason it called a Long tailed duck......can you guess?
This is the male and looks particularly stunning although a bit distant, pictures taken with 560mm
Not much else of note but a few Tufted duck, Great Crested Grebe, Black Headed gull and Common gull.


We left after realising it was never gonna come any closer and headed for Chew Valley Lake. A Cattle Egret had been around so after searching its usual haunts found it on Herons Green Bay with two Little Egrets, we decided that as it was a small dot not to take any pictures but another year tick all the same. A quick search from Woodford lodge found a super Goldeneye duck, but again too distant for pics. 

We headed towards Newton St Loe and parked at Church for the short walk to lakes to look for Hawfinch and whatever else was about. It all seemed very quiet on the walk, we saw Billy the Mute and a Kingfisher on fishing lake. Top lake a single male Goosander plus all the regulars i'd say around 30 Teal also.


Scanning trees up towards the Keep Goldcrest, Long Tailed tits and plenty of Great and Blue tits plus this lovely Treecreeper.


We wandered around looking for Hawfinch but none were seen on our visit, a report was emailed to us from Simon Stuart who at 12pm saw 10 plus maybe up 20 in flight!!
I'll try again in week.
We did see a rather large group of Greenfinch, no really they are Greenfinch although looking at pictures you couldn't tell! i'd estimate around 15-20 birds.


Greenfinch in the Plane trees with the seed balls, I had to look it up, but now you know what they are. :)


I mentioned ticks, we generally keep a list of what we've seen in the year just to make it easier as what we've seen and not, so far i'm on 

103 year ticks the last 5 are:
 Tawny Owl, Barn Owl, Long Tailed duck, Cattle Egret, and Goldeneye

Lauren's just behind  with 
98 species.
All to play for!

Thanks For Looking! 
&
  Thanks For All Your Support!

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