Friday 27th December & the Sightings

Hello there, I’m back once more with a blog of sightings from today, mainly from Old Moor.

The only satellite site news I have for you is from Ken Foundation who was at Adwick. He told us of 29 pink footed geese in the fields to the north of the reserve with the greylag flock (approx. 150).

At Old Moor the weather was pretty grey, or atmospheric as some like to say.

I’ll begin with the beardies. A flock of at least 4 (2m/2f) showed extremely well for quite a while this morning. I caught up with them, and a little crowd of watchers, at the corner as the path goes right towards the reedbed screen. I was told that they had made their way along the reeds from the reedbed screen with some very close views. About half an hour later, I caught up with them at the same place on my way back from the reedbeds. They have been showing regularly in this area, so if you are visiting tomorrow and would like to see them, you have a great chance along the path to the reedbeds!

I've tried to upload a video of them but sadly the blog will not let me do it... If you click here, hopefully you will be able to see the video via our Twitter feed and in the meantime, here's a photo.

Great goldeneye sightings today. We worked out that there were at least 8 of them today. I watched 4 (2m/2f) as they displayed on the Mere on the left hand side of the Wader Scrape. There were also 2 further goldeneye (1m/1f) to the right of the Wader Scrape and the final 2 (m/f) on Wath Ings. Goldeneye are one of my favourite diving ducks. Their scientific name is a little bit of a mouthful - Bucephala clangula – and they are ducks that we see at Old Moor in the winter months. They were displaying quite a bit this afternoon and the males were doing their ‘let’s throw my head back and see if she notices’ routine. On a sunnier day, the male has a stunning iridescent green/purple on the head – similar to that of a tufted duck. If you’d like a bit more info about goldeneye then click here for the RSPB page about them.

I've tried to upload a video of them but sadly the blog will not let me do it...If you click here, hopefully you will be able to see it via our Twitter feed. 

Initially I spotted one male goosander at the back of the Wader Scrape but later on, another 3 males flew in and they proceeded to preen on the banking at the back. A shelduck was seen here today too.

Here's a pic of the the 4 male goosanders seen at the back of the Wader Scrape. 

The Wader Scrape was a good place to spend a bit of time this afternoon with many wigeon whistling away as they fed on the spit in front of the hide as were the ‘nattering’ teal. There were cormorant fly-bys, a buzzard on a post and 3 grey herons standing still.

Another good place to head to if you are visiting this weekend. is the bird garden. The feeders were busy with bullfinches, goldfinches, chaffinches, blue and great tits, dunnock, robin, stock dove, blackbirds and wrens.

Other sightings from Old Moor today were - 4 snipe, a kestrel, approx 8 common gull, a sparrowhawk, 2 Cetti's warbler and a kingfisher. 

That's it, enjoy your evening.