Off-Patch Birding & Hampton catch up

Having picked up my first car for two years on Monday, much of the week was spent enjoying the many pleasures of freedom! In-keeping with the spirit of freedom, I decided to revisit an old favourite of my birding locations, Deeping High Bank. The B1166 runs between Crowland and Market Deeping, adjacent to the River Welland. It provides a great variety of habitats and is my go-to place to find Wintering birds such as wild swans and Short-eared Owls. I haven’t visited this spot for roughly two years but having followed some of the members of the Peterborough Bird Club, I knew that it was still a productive road on all accounts.

Most numerous bird of the evening had to be Great Crested Grebe and in the evening light, they looked absolutely stunning! There were pairs up and down the river giving courtship dances (see photo below) and most were now in breeding plumage though some still remained in Winter form.

Above: A pair of Great Crested Grebe caught mid courtship display.

There wasn’t much else of note on the river itself by way of wildfowl, a single male Pintail and a single male Pochard (Pictured below) were the only noteworthy ducks.

Above: A single male Pochard patrols the river. Surprising to see just one out on his own!

On the banks of the river itself I managed to get good views of some fairly common, but nevertheless lovely birds, Oystercatchers and Buzzards were photographing particularly well tonight!

Above: A Buzzard pretending he’s not interested in the big lens being pointed at him! 

Above: A lovely Oystercatcher catches the sun just right. The sealing wax-red bill and eye-ring are obvious here.

Having spent some time seeing the more common birds, I set my wits about trying to find the target birds, either groups of winter swans or Short-eared Owls. Having had absolutely zero info going into this search, I was less than hopeful to find swans, I know they can be particularly difficult to find in the hundreds and hundreds of acres of farmland which sandwich the Welland. However, I stopped the car to watch a male Marsh Harrier cruise over the road and as I tracked it through the air, a series of white blobs appeared in the field behind, very distant. I could see the house on the bend of New Road where the little bridge is and so used that as a landmark. Having arrived at the house, I looked South to see two large groups of swans in fields opposite each other – the right hand field contained a group of c.25 mute swans, the left, around 18 Whooper Swans and what looked to be a single Bewick Swan. The photo below was taken at extreme distance but you can at least tell these are indeed whoopers.

Above: The wintering swans looking alert. The 6th bird from the left, looking left and down looked to me, to be Bewick’s. a slightly different head profile and much less yellow at the base of the bill. 

Feeling rather pleased with myself that I’d managed to rustle up some swans for myself, I set off towards Deeping Lakes in the hopes of getting a Shorty too! I’ve always seen the Short-eared Owls between the chicane bend which marks the start of the ‘High Bank’ and the entrance to Deeping Lakes. I patrolled up and down but alas, no Owls at all, not even Barn. In fairness, the light was still strong and it was a mild day so I didn’t have much hope in the first place. I did stop however to look through a flock of Swans in the fields opposite the chicane bend. There were 90 birds at least, all of which were Mutes apart from a single Whooper among them. Unfortunately the pictures weren’t the best but again, you can tell what it is.

Above: A single Whooper Swan sits among the Mutes. It’s the bird with the outstretched wings. Note the yellow at the base of the bill, extending down to the nostrils – diagnostic of Whooper.

All in all, a pleasant evenings birding and a nice way to celebrate getting the new motor.

 

Not much birding occurred last week in Hampton for various reasons. I did however manage to get out to the Froglife reserve with the plans being put in place now for me and another volunteer to survey the birds come Spring time. It’s an exciting opportunity to be allowed access to the restricted habitat of the reserve and I’m looking forward to seeing what it holds! I made my way over to the reserve last week via a couple of new lakes I hadn’t visited before, not much of note but a wintering Chiffchaff, in what little vegetation there is, surrounding the small pond at the end of Freshwater Road (pictures below).

Above: This individual had a clear issue with his right eye, it was almost totally closed and the bird was incredibly obliging – possibly as a result of partial blindness.