A morning scanning Abberton

We found ourselves on Layer de le Haye causeway Abberton at 8am this morning scanning for the reported Fudge Duck. The wind was delivering some strong gusts but we got away with a mornings birding with the rain and stronger winds not arriving until lunch time.

One of the Whooper Swans

Our first target for some scope attention was a large raft of Pochard but we couldn't locate the Fudge amongst them getting only a Goldeneye of any note. A Great White Egret was seen feeding in the North West corner before we turned our attention to the main reservoir where we found a pair of Greater Scaup and a couple of Long-tailed Ducks to add interest to the days list and a few more Goldeneye. One of the Tufted Ducks was sporting a green nasal ring (French I think) so I've emailed to see if it's of interest to the ringers and will update if I hear anything back.

Two Whoopers

Greater Scaup

We drove around to Layer Breton causeway finding two Whooper Swans in a herd of around twenty Mutes. Two red-head Smew were feeding under the trees at the southern end of the causeway and another two Great Egrets were found at either end of the causeway. A male Marsh Harrier battled with the wind but little else of note was seen so we headed back around to Layer de le Haye and started the search for Fudge again and this time we got lucky when scanning in the North West corner the bird came out from under the trees and gave good scope views before flying to the far end were all the Pochard had now gathered close to Layer Breton. We put out the news and drove around to the other causeway were after a short scan Dave B. spotted the duck and we all got a second look before it vanished again back into cover.

Poor record shot of the Fudge flying away...views were very brief

We left for home before the worst of the wind and rain and with the year list now reading 176

A little map of where we found the treasures today.