Year List Update - 15th March 2026

This week, I've managed to add a few new species to this year's "Year List", bringing the total so far to 116 birds.

The first new bird was added on Tuesday, when I had a quick post-work drive across to Catcliffe Flash, in Sheffield for a 1st winter Scaup (115). The bird was easily found (despite looking into the sun!) and I managed some good 'scope views and a  few, distant, heavily-cropped photos.

Scaup (and Tufted Duck)

Spot the Scaup!

The next species was Lesser Redpoll (116), that I saw in the garden. Numbers increased over the week, so that today, 15th, there were 10 birds, on and around, the feeders.

After yesterday's visit to Linacre, Jayne and I went for a walk around Chatsworth Park. We didn't add anything new to the Year List, but we did see our first Derbyshire Oystercatcher of the year, down on the river.

Oystercatcher

Hybrid Duck in Bakewell

At the end of 2015 Darley Dale Wildlife Blogger wrote a post about a hybrid duck that he'd seen on the River Wye at Bakewell (see post here). The bird in question was identified as a hybrid between a male Tufted Duck and a female Pochard. I had some time on Sunday, so I drove across with Jayne to have a look for it. We found it almost immediately dozing with  a small group of Tufted Ducks on the river by the island.  The sun was out and I managed to get a  decent photo showing off its amazing colours.

Tufted Duck x Pochard hybrid

When I saw this bird, it reminded me about a hybrid duck I'd reported at Linacre back in November 2013. At the time I didn't manage to get a photo, but I did get a bit of poor quality video  (see post here). The 2013 bird was also in the company of Tufted Ducks, and also had a large black area on the end of its beak, so could well be the same bird. I also reported a very similar bird at Linacre in April 2010. Again, no photos unfortunately! Interestingly, this same bird (presumably) was reported on the Darley Dale Blog visiting Chatsworth in February 2014 (see here).

Hopefully, if it returns to Linacre I'll get a photo and be able to compare it with this bird.