The day of the Ducks

Hi readers, as usual Sunday was a day for birding this week. And our usual haunts were on the agenda. Firstly (again as usual) RSPB Sandwell Valley, and today plucked up a little surprise in the form of in my opinion one of the best looking birds in existence. We began the morning with views of flocks of Redwing, which we continued to get throughout the morning. On arrival in the hide we opened up to realise it was a quite cold morning, and I managed to forget my gloves so felt the cold a little more than I needed to. Anyway we got views of a Water Rail quite early on in the morning and many more throughout, including views of two at one time which is brilliant news for the site population.

A bit of Gull watching was still done with the arrival of a scarce reserve visitor a Common Gull which stayed on the booms for most of the morning. Other than that the regulars were all the birds of note. However at eleven (ish) Pete the Snipe gave the call that he had a Mandarin over the far side of the lake. The bird was on the far side of the lake sheltered under some trees, it was hard to see at first and very shy. The best of it was it was a Drake, which as you will know is a stunning bird with a variety of different colours on its plumage.

Later on into the morning the bird disappeared and we began to think it had flown out without us seeing, but I decided to have a quick look out at the lake and managed to catch site of a bird flying in much closer to the hide just behind the boom, it was the Mandarin making a return into our view, now much closer and all the more stunning, however the bird didn't stay long as Black headed Gulls were constantly mobbing it. Eventually the bird flew off towards the Golf course and wasn't seen again. I have to say it was a brilliant surprise to see the Mandarin Duck, a Chinese gift in my opinion, a bird everyone should see, its just stunning.

Todays mandarin Duck at Sandwell Valley.

RSPB Sandwell Valley- Mandarin x1, Gadwall 5+, Teal 10+, Lapwing 20+, Black headed Gull 50+, Common Gull x1, Water Rail x2, Tufted Duck 20+, Pochard 5+, Mute Swan x2,  Snipe 5+, Canada Goose 10+, Lesser Black backed Gull x1, Coot 10+, Moorhen 5+, Redwing 50+, Mallard 5+, Starling 10+, Great crested Grebe x1, Cormorant x1.

With the success of the Mandarin we decided to continue in our scarcer duck searches. Our birding was taken to Bartley Green Reservoir where as you know we are going quite often lately. We had heard of some Scaup being around the Reservoir, and although we had seen one last week thought it would be good to see them anyway. On arrival we spoke to a birder who gave us the run down on what he and others had seen in the week, he hadn't seen the Scaup that morning but had heard they were seen. So although he hadn't seen them right then, we still decided to look anyway as anyone would.

Almost instantly I was drawn to a couple of interesting looking ducks that caught my eye. The two ducks progressively came closer to us in the space of around half an hour, and as we got great views we identified them as Female, and first winter Drake Scaups. Two birds I actually hadn't seen in this plumage before but I had already done a little research in preparation for searching for them today. And not to forget I have a couple of photos to show the birds we saw, although again they are quite bad photos in terms of quality but I was taking them through holes in a fence. In addition to the two Scaups, we also got a couple of Goldeneye (both fem) and 6 Goosander. A Green Sandpiper also made a appearance when we were watching the Scaup. Here's the full sightings list from the visit,

Bartley Reservoir- Scaup x2, Tufted Duck 10+, Goosander x6, Grey heron 5+, Little grebe x1, Black headed Gull 50+, Great Black backed Gull 5+, Lesser Black backed Gull 20+, Herring Gull 10+, Green Sandpiper x1, Goldeneye x2.

Here's the pictures of the first winter Drake and female Scaup,

Female Scaup, Bartley Res.

The Two Scaups Bartley res

So now you can see where this post got its title, we saw plenty of Ducks, which each made the birding day a success. Next week it is likely we will be doing a little Gulling at Chasewater, hopefully we shall get a few rarer Gulls as they have been turning up everyday this week. It is also likely Sandwell Valley will be closed (the hide anyway) next week, work on the island in front of the hide begins this Tuesday, disturbance is likely to make opening the hide more or less pointless so it will most likely be closed this week. But I shall still be posting about any birding we do so look out for the next post.

Thanks for reading and have a good week all- WMBB