Who remembers this guy?

Hi readers, I came across one of my old Flikr photos a few days ago and it brought back some great memories of some of my earlier birding years at Sandwell Valley. This bird was a highlight of some of my earlier days birding in the valley, the days where I was just a little kid learning about the birds from the Hide. Well before I was a volunteer we were still weekly visitors to the hide I went there so much it would have been stupid for me not to be a volunteer I loved and still love it now. Anyway, I dated this picture back to 2010 but this bird was probably around well before this, its before the blog even began in my early teens.

Now before anyone gets excited its not a rare species that gave us something to look at every week in fact quite the opposite but I still loved looking at it comically for a very long time. The bird was known to us in the hide as the "Ginger Chicken" although it was a duck the name was fitting as you will see in the blurry picture I've got of it. I used to see it over by the ramp but haven't seen it for a long while now, whether or not its still lurking about I have no idea, but we used to enjoy spotting it every week.

I'm sure one Valley birder will have seen this guy in the past, I used to love seeing it every week just for the comical value of it, still a young birder I was seeing the fun side of hybrids like this, anyway just thought I would do a post on this guy made me chuckle a little when I saw the picture. 

Thanks for reading- WMBB