10th Nov 2024: VELVET SCOTERS and GLOSSY IBIS!!

It has been an incredible, almost unbelievable, week on patch with two entirely new birds for the site. Of which one is a first and one is a second (?) for the B.O.S. recording area. On top of a very good supporting cast, which would have made it a great week anyway.

It kicked off on Wednesday technically, but I didn't know about that until Friday, with regular bird-watching dog walker John Beak seeing and adult drake Common Scoter. The first of several new birds for the year seen this week.

News broke on Thursday afternoon of 2 VELVET SCOTERS! Initially seen by Keith Freshwater, he posted a photo of one of the birds on the local whatsapp group to confirm the ID and then revealed that there were 2 of them. A lot of people went to see them that afternoon and they were still present the next day. Surprisingly they were present up to the end of the week, with even the sailing (if there was any today?) not flushing them away. They have been seen flying around the reservoir but otherwise actually seem quite settled in.

On Friday morning I had our first Brambling of the year fly over. Saturday morning Steve Sansom found two Goldeneye on the reservoir and that afternoon Adam Hartley saw our first Dunlin of the year. Goldeneye is now a really good bird for the site and, for context, we've had as many (maybe more) records of Common Scoter in the 10 years or so. It has been a really poor year for waders too, so the addition of Dunlin is very welcome.

This morning I had another Hawfinch over calling c.10-12 times and not very high, which made me wonder if it had actually roosted on or near to site and was just setting off again. In the afternoon I was out for a walk with a friend, with no optics or camera, and just so happened to end up going round the reservoir. He asked me if one of the birds flying over was a Cormorant and I looked up to see a GLOSSY IBIS! Panic set in as I tried to take some phone photos of it and they were terrible. Thankfully, with other birders on site for the Velvet Scoters, some of them had seen it too and Duncan Dine managed to get a photo of it.

Other birds seen this week were a good amount (for here) of more common wildfowl, including 3 Shoveler, up to 5 Wigeon, 3 Teal, 2 Pochard, and 178 Greylag Geese. There was also a Snipe one morning, more Lapwing, another Redpoll one morning and up to 3-4 Chiffchaffs around.

Oh, and the Snow Goose was still around too.

Courtesy and copyright of JFT

Courtesy and copyright of JFT

Courtesy and copyright of Adam Hartley

Courtesy and copyright of Duncan Dine