KGV

 My birding has mostly been a quick look at the local reservoir I like to call a patch although it only really gets my best attention for spring passage and a few winter visits to check for rarer wintering birds.

This winter has been a bit slow and spring seems to be taking forever to get going. We had a juvenile Great Northern Diver winter until 19th January and some Scoter have dropped in on a couple of occasions. A single Slavonian Grebe, drake Scaup and drake Smew remain on site having been seen on almost all my visits including this morning. We've had at least three Goosander of late but I didn't see any this morning. Red Kites are daily encounters now and this morning I noted Sparrowhawk and Kestrel with a Buzzard this week too. At dawn Parakeets fly from roost across the reservoir in ever increasing numbers. On the 8th March Jimmy found our first spring arrival with a single Little ringed Plover on the causeway. 

Our first Wheatear of the year was seen on 3rd March but didn't linger for me to connect with it and I'm told somebody has seen Sand Martin passing through but again none have lingered yet.

For now the visits are a little disappointing but I guess Spring passage will start proper any day now to keep the interest going for a month or so.

I also took the Jims up to Abberton again on 9th March where we found the Canvasback from Billets Farm in the mist but couldn't locate a reported Ring-necked Duck despite a good search at Billets, Wigborough, Abberton church and both causeways. Spoonbill were nesting, we picked out a Redhead Smew and then 32 Russian White-fronted Geese dropped in west of Layer Breton causeway. Three Great White Egrets were noted.

year list now 167 with the LRP and Canvasback.

drake Smew

Smew

Slavonian Grebe

Black Redstart