Simply Red (and Crested)

Once again with interest across our own Recording Area amounting to no more than a couple or 3

MALLARD

HERRING GULL

braving the marauders plus the now resident

MUTE SWANS
down south and the north throwing up no more than the first

Mountain of Fencing Panels
along with poor views of a single

REDWING
it was time to play the Ace up our sleave! With 'rare Ducks' at Longham Lake our visit started

with a far better look at
GREY HERON

than the extremely distant 'first of the year bird'.

Once a Mega-Rarity itself in Great Britain it is now almost impossible to miss

GEAT WHITE EGRET
but we had already spotted the objects of our desire but as usual with such things
just about as far away as they could possibly be!

Some consider such things as

RED-CRESTED POCHARD

as 'plastic' which describs a bird as "not of wild origin" maybe escaped from captivity

or due to it World distribution unlikely to be of wild stock we don't subscribe to the theory.

RED-CRESTED POCHARD female

and male

and talk about a lucky break

caught in the 5 second act of copulation!
Aware of being accused of 'overload',

it would be a shame

just to delete the remaining stills and vids!

fem diving

and feeding.

All else were the Doorstep
BLACKBIRDs

awaiting their mid-day hand-out.

You Can Only Report What's There!

To say that yesterday was a 'struggle' would be a mojor understatement, with little or maybe nothing right across our Recording Area. Of note, it would seem

MISTER RYAN
may be back in business out of Bournemouth International but out in the field there was little more than this lone lady

TEAL
and the long redundant

AIRBUSES
still confined to the pan - desperate time need desperate measures, time to break out the

HOVIS
A few slices of liberally scattered slices just outside the door of Sligh Return and down they came.

As is usual it was greedy

BLACK-HEADED GULLS
first to appear followed in quick succession by eqally voracious

STARLINGs
The local

WOOD PIGEONs
also got in on the act but it was something of a surprise to note a

HERRING GULL
so close to home and just to pad it out a bit more

BLACK-HEAD

activity

and apologise for dropping so much excitement on you without prior warning, especially if you are at the breakfast table!

Off Piste

 Out of mild frustration as much as the desire to add more species to the 2021 List, with almost a total Blank on home turf we decided to give Longham Lakes a 'first of the year visit' with * denoting additions for Dorset.

GREAT WHITE EGRET*

not surprisingly the first contender to hit the list and

followed in quick succession by the 3 Musketeers
CORMORANT
and

LITTLE EGRET
both alraedy consigned to the list but followed by

GADWALL*

COOT*

COOT and GADWALL
which both did the trick

as did

POCHARD*
It was no more than the plumage of the juvenile

HERRING GULL

that attracted the attention as a feeding female

COOT
in the margins proved too much of a temptation.
Both

GREAT CRESTED GREBE*
and

TUFTED DUCK*

graced the log as did this

GREY HERON*
but only at great distance.
The final species was not an addition either but as with all GULLs including this

LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL

we simply cannot pass them by - Keep Watching!

How to Bowl a Maiden Over

 A summons to Dorchester for none Wildlifing reasons could not have been on a worse day weatherwise, and while the images may appear to show a fine front it was far from that!

YELLOWHAMMER
singular en-route did kick the morning off in fine form but from Monkey's Jump there was not a bird to be seen. Shifting down to

MAIDEN CASTLE
at first glance appeared to paint the same picture until a couple of

COMMON GULLs

appeared out of the ever increasing rain.

Apart from Black-headed Gulls not one of the hard won other species reached double figures with

LINNET

almost breaking the trend with a count of just 9

and

SKYLARK
checking in at c4.

It was a full hour before the first

GOLDEN PLOVER

put in an appearence

and then only c3.

However, there was a Bright Side to all of this as apart from the Black-heads

all othe specise mention were additions to the
Year List!

PS - how annoying then to find a report of 400 on the Dorset Bird Club Website the very next morning!