The first sighting this morning was the Little Owl that was sat in his(?) favourite tree by the entrance. I had my little camera to hand today and managed to get a quick, not-very-well-focused picture through the car windscreen. A good example of a "record shot".
Little Owl
Other birds of note included my first singing Mistle Thrush of the year, a pair of "twit-twooing" Tawny Owls and several Siskin.
On the water the waterbird numbers were better than last week with 4 Mandarin Ducks, the summer plumaged Great-crested Grebe, 1 Grey Wagtail, 5 Goosanders (2 males and 3 females), 37 Mallards, 16 Tufted Ducks, just 5 Black-headed Gulls, 8 Coots, 6 Canada Geese, 3 Moorhens and 4 Cormorants.
The Cormorants were interesting in that 3 were adults in breeding plumage and these 2 of below appeared to be displaying to each other, something I've never seen at Linacre before. Also the bird on the right in the picture was wearing a BTO ring, but unfortunately, I couldn't see it well enough to read the numbers.
Cormorants
Finally, the last new arrival for the year was the hybrid goose which has been seen at Linacre every year since at least 2006. It appears every year with a Canada Goose in tow and hangs around for the summer, without attempting to breed, Let's see what happens this year.
Hybrid goose and Canada Goose
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