MEDITERRANEAN GULL STILL ROOSTING

WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY

Another sharp frost followed by clear conditions and a continuing thaw. A slow-moving front dropped down from the north bringing rain during the afternoon. Little wind.

WOODLANDS PARK, EAST OF LONDON ROAD (A413) (SP 887 036)

Much Common Buzzard activity with 3 birds in aerial display; also single RED KITE in area.

WILSTONE RESERVOIR, TRING (1400-1500 hours)

Fairly quiet with no sign of Roy's pair of Red-crested Pochard nor of the drake Goosander (still present yesterday). Duck numbers were well up due to an arrival of birds from frozen College Lake.

Great Crested Grebe (8)
Little Grebe (1)
Atlantic Great Cormorant (most probably Sinensis) (44 roosted)
Mute Swan (4 - including 1 first-winter)
Canada Geese (29)
Greylag Goose (2)
Mallard (29)
Gadwall (26+ - large increase)
Eurasian Wigeon (646)
Common Teal (188)
Northern Shoveler (145)
Tufted Duck (76)
Pochard (20)
COMMON GOLDENEYE (1 adult drake, 5 females)
RUDDY DUCK (3 - 1 adult drake, 1 immature drake, 1 female)
Coot (303)
Lesser Black-backed Gull (1 adult)
Common Gulls (6 adults roosting on ice)
Common Kestrel (2, both sat by the B489)
Song Thrush (1 feeding on snowmelt opposite Cemetery)

STARTOP'S END RESERVOIR (partly frozen)

Great Crested Grebe (1)
Mute Swan (3 - 1 first-winter)
Canada Geese (43)
Greylag Goose (very tame bird on bank that feeds from hand)
Tufted Duck (43)
Pochard (26)
Coot (37)
Mistle Thrush (1 male in song)

MARSWORTH RESERVOIR (virtually all frozen)

Pochard (1)

TRINGFORD RESERVOIR

Great Crested Grebe (1)
Mute Swans (5)
Pochard (3)
Tufted Duck (15)

COLLEGE LAKE (marsh frozen)

Great Crested Grebe (1)
Little Grebe (1)
Mute Swan (3)
Gadwall (16)
Wigeon (53)
Tufted Duck (27)
Pochard (12)
*RED-CRESTED POCHARD (4 present including 1 adult drake)
Coot (86)

PITSTONE QUARRY (completely frozen apart from a puddle)

Mute Swan (2 first-winters)
Moorhen (2) Coot (4)
Greenfinch (1 male)

NORTHFIELD ROAD

In paddocks adjacent to Honeysuckle/Park Hill Farm, where snow has cleared, 3 Lapwing, 2 Mistle Thrush and 5 Fieldfare were feeding, whilst along the entrance road to Northfield Grange, 19 Common Pheasants were feeding together (including 5 male Ring-neckeds). A RED KITE was soaring over Aldbury Nowers and later flew west over the road.

DOWN FARM STUBBLE FIELDS

The snow-covered fields either side of the B489 at Ivinghoe were completely birdless today - not a sign of a single Skylark - whilst Down Farm was equally devoid of life with just a single male Common Kestrel and Muntjac noted.

WILSTONE RESERVOIR GULL ROOST (1630-1730)

A large roost with at least 3,867 Black-headed Gulls present by 1730 (and still coming in), the regular first-winter MEDITERRANEAN GULL (in exactly the same place close in to the Drayton Bank), 217 Common Gulls (including 27 first-winters) and 5 Lesser Black-backed Gulls (4 adults, 1 2nd-winter).