Linacre Whoopers

I was down at Linacre this morning with Luke. We started off at the bottom reservoir, where we managed to find the 2 juvenile Shags, and also saw a couple of Kingfishers, including 1 perched up on the overflow. Unfortunately, it had moved on before we got near enough to get a photo. We then moved on to the middle reservoir where we found 15 Mandarin Ducks, 5 Goosanders (2 males and 3 "redheads"), and a couple of  Great-crested Grebes, including 1 in breeding plumage.

As we walked up to the top reservoir we spotted a group of large, white birds that turned out to be... Whooper Swans, 13 in total. This my first record since January 2014, when there were 15 present for one day. We watched them for about 45 minutes, before they took off and flew high to the North West. Apparently, 15 were also present yesterday (thanks Amanda).

Whooper Swans

Also present today were 21 Canada Geese that flew in and landed briefly on the top reservoir and a single Greylag Goose that flew over the top reservoir honking loudly! Both species were the first Linacre records of 2016.