Somerset Wild Walks: Shoveler

Thursday, 9 February 2017

Greylake and Brean Cove 6/2/17

A frosty start to our visit to Greylake with fast increasing cloud very quickly giving a grey and overcast morning. Plenty of the smaller birds around the carpark and feeder including Reed Bunting, Chaffinch, Starlings, etc. The walk to the hide was alive with the calling and whistling of Teal and Wigeon and over head a huge flock of around 100 Snipe whizzed overhead a few times. We have never seen so many Snipe.

From the hide its self we had good views of the large numbers of Shoveler, Wigeon, Teal, Snipe and a few Pintail. The Shoveler seemed to be very active this morning with plenty of flights here and there. Unfortunately the dull and overcast conditions didn't help with the photography but the birdwatching was good. Two Great Egrets were seen at the back of the reserve and also a Marsh Harrier which took flight and alarmed the wildfowl at the very back of the reserve. It's a shame that on this visit the Harrier didn't come a little closer to the hide.

After a couple of hours we left the hide to journey home but stopped off on the way to Brean Down Cove to try and see the Black Redstart. The cloud had thickened up even more and the first few spots of rain began to fall. We had just enough time to walk along the beach find the Black Redstart, Stonechat, Rock Pipit and Raven before the rain well and truly came down.

Drake Shoveler

Shoveler - We have noticed good numbers this year

Wheels down

Shoveler squadron

Shoveler and Teal

Wigeon

Wigeon and Pintail

Coot

Snipe

Stonechat at Brean Cove

On the beach

Black Redstart

Saturday, 7 January 2017

Slimbridge 3/1/17 - Bittern, Cettis, Bewick's etc

A cold, frosty and sunny day for our visit to Slimbridge with many of the water areas and pools remaining frozen all day. Only one half of South lake was unfrozen and it was here that there was good numbers of Pochard, Tufted, Teal, Shoveler, Shelduck & Greylag Geese. It was fascinating to watch unusual behaviour from a group of Shoveler as they spinning round and round in a group dabbling in the water in a tight little raft. A new feeding strategy?

Bewick's swans were still in the Rushy area and seen from the other hides. A family group were quite happy on the ice and they had no problem skating for take off!

Not too much was seen from the Holden Tower except for Barnacle, Canada and Greylag Geese.

All the usual small species of birds were clambering around the feeders at the Willow hide as well as an opportunistic rat.

As we arrived at the Kingfisher hide we were lucky to get a 2 minute view of a Bittern before it flew across to some reeds. At almost the same moment a Cettis Warbler sat nicely for a few seconds.

Back to a last visit to the Rushy hide where quite a long way out were a Dunlin & a Little Stint plus plenty of Pintail.

In summary we were a little surprised by the lack of birds on the 'tack piece' and estuary fields viewed from the Holden Tower. It was however a very enjoyable day at Slimbridge with 52 species seen and a nice little kick start to our new year list.