Wood Duck

Eyeworth Pond near Fritham is always worth a visit. The birds are fed regularly and are nearly tame and there are always picture opportunities. This year there was the added bonus of a resident Wood Duck. It may well be an escapee but it is living in the wild, and it looks good, so it is worth a picture. What we hadn't realised was that there was a female on the pond as well. Next year we could be going back to photograph wild british born Wood Ducks.

If this happens you would have to question why their status should be any different to that of the british born Cranes from the reintroduction program.

Wood Ducks

Wood Duck

Female Wood Duck

We did initially have a bit of confusion over the female. We had not expected to see it and she looks very similar to the Mandarin Duck female, picture below. However, she does shows the diagnostic darker head, more white around the eye, black nail, and different markings around the base of the bill.
They are quite different when you see the two side by side.

The male Mandarins were also in attendance and there was a small group of Goosanders, one male and four females but as ever they were keeping their distance. Still, not a bad slection of ducks for a small pond.

Mandarin Duck

Mandarin Duck

Goosander with three of his four ladies

We had started the day at Blashford Lakes. It's not one of our favourite sites but the Bramblings are reliable on the feeders outside the Woodland hide. I would have liked to put a picture of them on the blog but you could barely see them through the windows in the hide. The "glass" is badly scratched and fogged and you have difficulty making out any colours on the birds.

Brambling duly ticked we moved on. We did have a quick look out from the Tern Hide but the birds as usual were so far away it was almost like doing a sea watch. The Ivy North Hide does give you a good chance of seeing a Bittern but you have to look at it through heavily tinted blue glass. We gave that a miss. The site has so much potential but seems so poor on delivery.


Eyeworth Pond, however always delivers on the small birds as well as on the ducks and there is no blue glass to get in the way.

Marsh Tit - white spot on upper mandible 

Marsh Tit

Nuthatch

Coal Tit

On the fields driving away from Fritham a flock of forty to fifty Redwings

Redwing

Below a couple of shots from earlier in the week. A rather wet and bedraggled looking Great Grey Shrike at Waltham Brooks. A bit like me that day. He wasn't going anywhere but there was a lot of wet and sticky mud between me and him. I thought better of it and headed off to Arundel Wetland Centre for a cup of tea.

Distant and rather wet Great Grey Shrike

And the Wetland Centre delivered yet another good Kingfisher photo opportunity. There are at least two on the site and they appear very tolerant of people. The only problem is that they are attracting more and more photographers to the site. Good for the WWT funds but not so good if you want the bird to yourself.

Arundel Wetland Centre - Kingfisher

Hawfinch

I had two targets today, the first Hawfinch which was successful, the second Penduline Tits which was a bit of a disaster. For the Hawfinches I went to Lakeside Country Park in Eastleigh. I had seen them here in previous years and sure enough they were frequenting the same area again this year. That is, the trees just behind the cafe and next to the miniature railway line.

You can get good views through the binoculars but it is difficult to get close. They tend to stay in the tops of the trees and will fly off if you get too near. I was also having the added problem of them always appearing to land so that I was photographing into the sun. Still, I shouldn't complain, they are always a great bird to see. Two record shots are shown below.

For the Pendulines I visited Titchfield Haven and had decided to sit in West Hide and wait for them to come to me. That is exactly what I did for four hours. The birds of course went to Meadow Hide on the other side of the river. It was a long cold wait for birds that decided not to show.

There were lots of other birds around Lakeside. Repolls, Siskin, and an assortment of finches but again they were all in the tops of the trees.  This Wren made a couple of appearances. It seemed lively enough but seemed a bit on the thin side for this time of year.

There were a few Fieldfare in the trees but no Redwing that I could see.

With the long wait in the hide at Titchfield I saw very few birds but I at least managed to pick up shots of a Blackbird and Song Thrush to give a bit of variety to the blog.

The only other bird of interest was this Black Swan in the Harbour. It seemed to spend the whole day chasing a Mute Swan around the boats. I am not sure if it was feeling amorous or whether it was just trying to drive a rival off its territory.

The Black Swan is breeding in the wild and seems to have a self sustaining population. I wonder how long it will be before it is accepted as a British bird. Alternatively, I suppose, it could go the way of the Ruddy Duck and be wiped out in this country to stop it interbreeding with the Mute Swans.

Bullfinches

As far as waders and wildfowl are concerned I am not a great fan of Pulborough Brooks. There are great expanses of water, but the birds are usually too distant even for record shots. The place is actually better for the smaller birds with Bullfinches, Goldcrests, and later in the year Nightingales being relatively easy to capture.

Today, however, with the brooks and scrapes likely to be frozen over and with the possibility of finding birds out on the ice looking for open water, it seemed worth another visit. It was worth the try but it was nearly a wasted trip. There were birds on the ice, as we had expected, but they were all the common ducks. We managed to find a group of ten Snipe foraging near West Mead Hide but other than those and a few Lapwing I did not see a single wader all day.

Snipe

Fortunately the visit was rescued by the Bullfinches and a few good looking Fieldfares we spotted as we walked around.

Fieldfare

We found a small flock of six Bullfinches close by West Mead hide, a couple at Fattengates and another three or four at the top of the zigzags. They were all very mobile and it was difficult to get shots of them but it did occupy us for an interesting hour or so.

Bullfinch

Keen to improve on our Bullfinch shots we then headed off to the Arundel Wetland Centre where Dave had photographed a couple of females the previous week.  They were still where he had left them, feeding on the buddleia bushes just outside the Sand Martin hide. These were a little tamer than the Pulborough birds and had no intention of leaving their food source even when people passed within a few feet of them. Unfortunately though, there was no male to photograph.

Female Bullfinch

A quick look from the Sand Martin hide gave us the unexpected bonus of a Grey Wagtail actively feeding on the waters edge and the interesting challenge of could you get a shot that was not a complete blur as it raced up and down

Grey Wagtail

I had one final opportunity for a photograph as we headed back for the car. One of my favourite birds the Dunnock, almost too close to get him in the frame.

Dunnock

Overall, not a bad day. A few decent pictures of the Bullfinches, sightings of Water Rail, Treecreeper and Goldcrest and a few year ticks and I went home happy.

Goosander

Another morning spent padding out the year list. This time we went up to Petworth Park to tick off the Goosander and Egyptian Geese. Neither were playing ball. The Goosander was on the usual lower lake but was mobile and seemed determined to stay as far away from us as possible. We settled for distant shots rather than chasing him around. I assume that he is the same bird as last year but he seems much more reticent about having his picture taken this year.

Goosander but a bit distant

 
The geese are usually on the same lake or in the tree at the south end of the lake. This time all we could find were two out in the park close to the deer. We intended to get pictures as we made our way back to the car but they took off and did a flyby to inspect us before disappearing into the field on the opposite side of the road. I would normally be happy with the chance to get them flying, but this time the camera was not ready and I was a bit slow seeing the opportunity, so no pictures.

There are a lot of old trees in the park and we are always hopeful of finding an owl in one of them. No owls this time but there were Treecreepers everywhere.

Treecreeper

This is a bit of a bogey bird for me. I see them often enough but I have never managed to get a good picture.

We still had a couple of hours of the morning left so we dropped in at Pulborough Brooks. We had a walk down to the West Mead hide but the path was flooded beyond that point. I had seen the pictures but you get no idea of the volume of water involved until you sit in the hide and look out over the brooks. It was like being on the coast. As you would expect all the birds were on the far side of the water probably a mile or so away. We had to be content with a few Fieldfare and Redwings feeding in the bushes close by the hide.

Fortunately one of the Fieldfare came into the open to dispute territory with a Blackbird and I managed to get a couple of pictures.

Fieldfare

There being nowhere else to go we retired to the cafe and sat out on the terrace with a bacon baguette and a cup of tea whilst we added a few more year ticks from amongst the birds using the feeders.