Winter thrushes at Blacktoft

Pottered down to Blacktoft on Tuesday 27/11 to see if the water pipits were about. 'On the ditch slubbings' unquote. Slubbings must be a local word or a land drainers' technical word. Funnily enough it is referred to in the Sussex Otters & Rivers Project (SORP) if you search under ditch slubbings. It means all the gunge you put on the bank of a ditch after you've dredged it with a big digger. Not a lot of people want to know that! Great for water pipits apparently.

I saw none.

As I arrived the car park was full of birds. Immediately I saw one mistle thrush, a number of redwing and lots of fieldfare. There wasn't a lot else but the fieldfare kept me entertained. As I crossed the big bank I spotted a very dark pheasant...

Pheasant ...and a rat hoovering up the seed under the bird table.

Rat Tree sparrows and tits were also there. This blue tit looked good with his red hawthorn berry feast.

Blue Tit However the fieldfares were the stars, so here's a few of the best shots of them. First, from the car park.

Fieldfare Fieldfare Then from the long hedge.

Fieldfare Fieldfare The birds were very nervous and it was hard to get really close. Eventually one bird was a bit more determined to have his haws, as it were, and stayed while I ran off a few shots - these are all of the same bird.

Fieldfare Fieldfare Fieldfare Fieldfare The afternoons are short at the moment and by 3.30 the light was failing. I packed up. As I was turning onto the road back to Ousefleet I saw a large flock of geese land in a field on the left about 600m ahead. I got the camera onto the passenger seat, wound the window down and set off slowly in my mobile hide.

Pink-footed Geese                                                                                                Pinkfeet!

A Pugney's Surprise

The news was that a drake adult long-tailed duck was on the main lake at Pugney's Country Park near Durkar, Wakefield. [If you want to satnav your way there, I put Durkar as my destination on TomTom. It works for me!] I looked long and hard and could only find gulls, coots and great-crested grebes plus a few other usual suspect wildfowl. No sign of a LTD. Then, as if from nowhere, a fairly large splodgy black and white duck flew to the far end of the lake. Where it had been until then I had no idea. I set off walking near the bank in appallingly muddy conditions.

Again no sign until I thought I saw it. I set off again only to find a black-headed gull. Had I seen it at all, I wondered. Then it popped up again.

I realised two things. One, it can swim a long way underwater, staying underwater for a considerable time. Two, it spends more time out of sight than in view.

Sort of skulking behind a bush I eventually got reasonably close. Good bird if it is rather splodgy-blotchy. But a nice male nonetheless. Here's a few views.

Long-tailed Duck Long-tailed Duck Long-tailed Duck Long-tailed Duck Long-tailed Duck Can't stop! Goodbye!

Long-tailed Duck