After the mild climate of Iberia it was a bit of a shock to get back out into the English countryside. Cold it may well have been but importantly for me it stayed dry too as Alan Shorrock and I popped over to Eyebrook for a gentle reintroduction into local birding.
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| Common Scoter... |
We began at Sam's Dyke where it was immediately obvious that recent rainfall has raised the water level to pre summer levels. Sadly there was no sign of the redhead Smew that had been present earlier in the week either south or north of the island. A Great White Egret was perhaps the best bird before we moved on to the island bunker. My search through the large aythya flock off the plantation shore was soon stopped when Shozzer picked out a distant female Common Scoter southeast of the island. We watched it briefly before it flew north and joined the flock that I'd been looking through moments earlier. Leaving the bunker we moved along the road and tried to find it again.
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| ...and another rubbish picture of Common Scoter! |
Surprisingly we found it rather easily feeding on the edges of the flock, it was always distant but I did get a couple of very dodgy record shots and I apologise for them in advance. Also present within the flock was an impressive total of thirteen Red Crested Pochard including eight drakes, nowadays I treat them like White Storks in that they look great but I never know if they're truly wild or not. The rest of the res was quiet and a look at Blatherwycke didn't produce anything memorable either. The Cross Keys in King's Cliffe provided me with a welcome chance to reacquaint myself with British beer, it was more agreeable than the British weather!
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