We arrived shortly after 11.00am and walked out to North Hide. It was rather chilly and to be perfectly honest we saw little on the walk to the hide, only a few Black-tailed Godwits and several Teal from the hide, and nothing much on the way back to the car.
However, things changed slightly when we got back to the visitor centre. Meeting Laura and Paul we grabbed a coffee and sat outside on the picnic tables. As we talked a number of Mediterranean Gulls started dropping in and landing on the water, I took a quick count but gave up when I reached 150 individuals. A few more birds were gathered in the car park.
Also from the visitor center I saw at least twenty Snipe and a Water Rail was heard calling. Finishing our drinks we bid farewell to Laura and Paul and headed off west through Weymouth and on to the coast road towards Bridport, and then turning off to West Bexington where we sat and ate our lunch.
Whilst Ellie started tucking in to her sandwich I got out my 'scope and started scanning the sea, and within a minute had located four Velvet Scoters, and soon found a second group of four further west. Although they were not that distant, my record shots with my phone leave a lot to be desired, but at least you can see it's a black duck with a white wing panel!!
Also out to sea were three Great Crested Grebes and about a dozen Common Scoters. It was registering as zero degrees on the car thermometer, and standing outside with the wind blowing it felt much colder. We left the beach and drove back towards the main road, stopping halfway up and looking over the mere and I spent five minutes scanning the water with my scope. There were loads of duck on the water: Gadwall, Shoveler, Mallard, Teal, and Wigeon as well as smaller numbers of Tufted Duck and Pochard. Before long I could feel myself getting colder and colder, so decided to call it a day and off we headed towards home...but stopping off on the way to do the weekly grocery shop!!
No comments:
Post a Comment