RED-THROATED DIVER on Stewartby Lake - LGRE Diary Notes

SATURDAY 1 JANUARY (NEW YEARS DAY 2011)

Virtually all of the lying snow has now melted but on the lakes, gravel pits and reservoirs, thick ice is still prevalent and many sites are still not ice-free. It was another reasonably mild day though (temperatures reaching 7 degrees C) but very dreary and grey, with rain moving in during the afternoon.

The undoubted highlight of the day was a RED-THROATED DIVER in Bedfordshire, found by Roy Nye.

GROVEBURY PIT (BEDFORDSHIRE)

Following a text from Johnny Lynch, I stopped off at Grovebury where I eventually located both flocks of Atlantic Canada Goose feeding in grass fields between the sand quarry and the Grand Union Canal. A single Greylag Goose was found amongst the 310 birds but I could find no trace of the very wary PINK-FOOTED GOOSE that John had seen earlier. The fields also yielded 2 Common Kestrels.

STEWARTBY LAKE (BEDFORDSHIRE)

The last hour or so of daylight (1520-1615 hours) was spent at Stewartby Lake in intermittent rain, partly in accompaniament with Tim Robson and Martin Stevens.

The RED-THROATED DIVER was still present and favouring the sailing club end. It was very mobile and diving constantly and appeared to have somewhat scaly-fringed upperparts indicating a juvenile.

Being ice-free unlike neighbouring Brogborough Lake, large numbers of waterfowl were present at the site, including exceptional numbers of diving duck.......

Great Crested Grebes (127)
Little Grebes (9)
EURASIAN BITTERN (although up to 6 birds were seen during the ice, Tim and I obtained awesome views of a very pale individual wandering out in the open and on top of the Phragmites in the reedbed in the NW corner)
Mute Swan (1)
Mallard, Coot & Moorhen
Eurasian Wigeon (18)
Common Teal (44)
Tufted Duck (772)
*GREATER SCAUP (a first-winter drake with Tufted Ducks to the east of the watchpoint and two adult females in the NW arm to the right)
Northern Pochard (98)
Common Goldeneye (32)
WATER RAIL (2 heard)
A total of 800 gulls roosting, predominantly Black-headed, but including 55 Common, 18 Argenteus Herring, 90+ Scandinavian Herring, 44 Lesser Black-backed and 21 Great Black-backed; also 1 adult YELLOW-LEGGED GULL in with them too.
Common Kingfisher (1 by the stream)

Common Pheasant (1 male), Great Spotted Woodpecker, Rook, Fieldfare, Redwing, Chaffinch, Goldcrest, Wren, Robin, Long-tailed Tit and Blue Tit

At dusk, 1 PEREGRINE was roosting on top of one of the chimneys.