REDHEAD SMEW ENLIVENS ANOTHER COLD GREY WINTER'S DAY

TUESDAY 16 DECEMBER 2008

Another very cold, dreary and grey day with temperatures not rising above 5 degrees C. A second successive day with rare wildfowl, following yesterday's 4 Bewick's Swans at Hilfield. A redhead Smew and a fabulous adult drake Red-breasted Merganser highlighted, courtesy of Roy Hargreaves and Simon Nichols/Rob Hill respectively. Superb finds !

WILSTONE RESERVOIR (A full inventory was taken of wildfowl)
(1100-1300 hours, in part-company with Martin Page)

Great Crested Grebe (19)
Little Grebe (3)
Cormorants (16)
Mute Swans (12 adults)
Greylag Geese (117 still, plus two hybrids)
Canada Geese (14)
Mallard (32) **1,056 ducks of ten species click-counted
Gadwall (just 3)
Eurasian Wigeon (553)
Common Teal (273)
Northern Shoveler (9)
Tufted Duck (112)
Northern Pochard (67)
COMMON GOLDENEYE (5 present including a pristine full adult drake and four female-types; well scattered)
**SMEW (1 redhead and rather elusive. Initially found by Roy Hargreaves at about 0900 hours viewing from the new overflow, I relocated it after nearly two hours of searching early afternoon. It was keeping very close to the central bank and was fishing/diving at frequent intervals just offshore of the bank and on the south side of the bank. Once behind the trees, it could only be seen from the Drayton Bank Hide.
RUDDY DUCK (1 winter drake)

Lapwings (227 roosting on rafts, bank)
Common Snipe (5 roosting in sedge in front of hide)
Black-headed Gulls (40)
Common Gulls (2 - adult & first-winter)
Lesser Black-backed Gull (1 3rd-winter)

Jay (flew high north at 1210)
Song Thrush (1 by car park)

STARTOP'S END RESERVOIR

Tufted Duck (70)
Northern Pochard (20)
Pied Wagtail (5 in horse paddocks)
Meadow Pipit (1)

PITSTONE QUARRY

Little Grebe (3)
Mute Swan (1 adult) (scarce at this site)
Mallard (12)
Tufted Duck (29)
Northern Pochard (3)
Common Gull (8 including a first-winter)
Lesser Black-backed Gull (12 adults including a single adult intermedius)

*MARSH TIT - a very vocal and unringed bird was showing well in the scrub and trees directly opposite Folly Farm at SP 943 143.

ALDBURY VILLAGE

I was delighted to come across a garden in Aldbury Village ('Hill View' at 43 Stocks Road) harbouring 15 HOUSE SPARROWS in their border hedgerow - in fact, the first I have encountered in the village this year.