Wednesday 23 February 2011

It rained on and off for the entire day today, so my afternoon walk was a very short affair, just a quick jaunt over to the lakes to see if anything new had dropped down onto the water.

On getting to the lake area, I quickly sought refuge in the outbuilding that over looks the main lake, where I immediately saw the unmistakable male GOOSANDER out on the lake, more than that, upon looking through my bins to get a better view, I saw another 4 Goosander with it, all females! Fantastic! That was certainly worth getting wet for :-)

I got all the views I wanted today, as they all sat out on the water preening and dozing, now i'm all ''Goosandered out'' ! With them on the water were a pair of CANADA GEESE and a pair of MALLARD. Looking out into the rain, on the opposite side of the out building, I noticed a GOLDCREST working its way round a small fir tree, as I watched it feeding, another Goldcrest 'bumped' into it coming from the opposite direction, both birds grappled with each other, causing them both to tumble through the tree, and hit the ground with a bump, there they split up and went their separate ways, I've never seen two Goldcrest scrap it out before :-)

I had one more quick scan of the lake, just in case I'd missed anything whilst oggling the Goosanders, but nothing turned up, so during the next lull in the rain I made a quick exit home again.

I'm not too worried by the short visit today, as i'm off work for the next five days, and i'll be doing full patch visits every day - weather permitting ! Surely I can find a few new species to add to the months list or even the year list ?

6 comments:

Bob Bushell said...

Good news for the Goosanders.

Marc Heath said...

I have given up on the Goosanders at Reculver, sure they have moved on but good to see your flock is growing.

Warren Baker said...

Marc,
I see the Canada Geese I sent over to you arrived, I think I can spare you a couple of my Goosander too :-)

Chris said...

Cool you saw goosanders, I saw my first one on the river this afternoon when I went to the doc check up.... Here it is also raining, stopping, raining again, kind of frustrating!!! Well spring might be there soon!!

Pete Woodruff said...

Rain, rain, go away....come again another day!

There's a good time acumin Warren you'll see!

ShySongbird said...

It certainly was worth getting wet to see those Goosander Warren.

Interesting Goldcrest behaviour too.