Sunday 8 November 2015

Linacre Reservoirs - 8th November 2015

The weather this weekend has been pretty grim, with regular rain showers and wind, but I managed to get down to Linacre for  a couple of hours with Jayne late morning. We had a walk around the middle and top reservoirs and recorded excellent numbers of Mandarin Duck (a minimum of 77, the highest count of the year), Mallard (125, again, the highest count of 2015),  and Tufted Duck (56).

In addition, we also recorded a couple of Cormorants, sitting in the trees by the bottom reservoir, 1 "redhead" Goosander, 1 Great-crested Grebe, 5 Coots, 8 Moorhens, 50 Black-headed Gulls and this interesting looking duck.

Wigeon

My initial reaction was a juvenile Wigeon, which is what I recorded it as. It was dabbling and feeding on seeds under the trees on the middle reservoir, and it was only when I got back and looked at  the pictures of the computer, that I noticed it had an all black beak, something that is not shown on images of juvenile Wigeon. I'll leave it as that unless anyone else knows better?

The final birds of note were a small flock of Redwings (c.6) and Fieldfares (c.10) that flew up from Rowans by the top reservoir.

4 comments:

  1. Hiya. It doesn't look like a pure Wigeon (Eurasian, American, or escaped Chiloe). I'd take a stab at juvenile Chiloe x hybrid. A shot of the open wings (ideally both surfaces) would help with the ageing and ID.
    Regards, Jim Clarke.

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    1. Thanks Jim. I wasn't convinced it was a pure Eurasian Wigeon. I need to get some much better photos!

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    2. Congratulations on the Shags by the way; the sight of 7 together on the middle reservoir this afternoon was amazing!

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    3. Thanks. I spotted 6 this morning, so 7 is very good. Apparently there were 8 yesterday afternoon! I'll be putting some more photos on the blog later.

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