Sutton Bingham - Wed 18 Jan

Despite laving work late, getting stuck in traffic and having to nip home to do a few chores I still managed about ninety minutes at the reservoir this afternoon.
Starting at the northern causeway there was nothing of note so I popped on down to the southern end where I had a very brief glimpse of the Otter again as well as twenty Teal, but nothing else to pique my interest so I drove round to the Fishing Lodge.
Whilst chatting to the warden I scanned the geese grazing nearby and found an Egyptian Goose! This was great to see especially as I missed the last two records at Sutton Bingham, both of which were brief. I was able to watch this bird for quite some time as it fed with the Canada Geese and Wigeon. The only down side was I was viewing it straight in to the light, but the quality record photos are good enough to see what it is!

 

I then drove back round to the northern causeway again and checked out West Pool. I found a Stonechat which was pretty mobile and difficult to pin down. If it was the bird that was present around Christmas time it's done a good job of staying out of site so far this year. I also flushed thirteen Snipe and a Meadow Pipit flew over. A third-winter Yellow-legged Gull drifted in from the west and circled West Pool a couple of times and finally, the Egyptian Goose flew off to the west at around 3.15pm and to the best of my knowledge was not seen again.