A more typical winter's day with plenty of sunshine on Thursday (11th) was an opportunity to head to the New Forest and Blashford. First stop for Gos was virtually birdless and with no shelter from the breeze saw me cutting my losses and heading to Ibsley Water. Large numbers of wildfowl were all sheltering on the far side and hence distant. The north facing hide windows were into the teeth of the wind so little time spent other than admiring many Pintail (950 ish according to JMC with another 50 on Ivy Lake); probably my largest count ever. Others had a Black-necked Grebe and Red-crested Pochard. I'm assuming it's last spring's drake Ring-necked Duck that I found on Ibsley which has been on Linwood east, including today.
Elsewhere 2-3 Great White Egrets was the best of the rest. The south side was very poor with no winter finches and the recent Otter didn't put in a show although a couple of large wildfowl disturbances may have been caused by it.
Monday at Titchfield saw the Black-necked Grebe offshore - and found reasonably quickly thanks to IC's early WhatsApp message. Little else in still flooded conditions but a quick scan offshore prior to leaving was rewarded with a very distant eagle over Calshot where JGR reported three a little later!!
Today a brief visit to Burpham for the eight Bewick's Swan saw them below the church as usual but little supporting cast. In WWT the presence of ice and strimmers meant it was birdless and a low-flying Chinook flushed a few Snipe and rattled the cage of about 100 Greylags which landed on the river. Finally, the early-morning Bittern (above) popped out briefly but quickly skulked off down a channel between reeds.
And still no Waxwings nearby.
And finally another Bittern pic courtesy of Mike Jerome; what a cracker!!
